[Nhcoll-l] How to display herbarium specimens without color fading

Mon Mar 7 12:09:35 EST 2022

Dear Rebecca,

We have hired an artist to paint the herbarium specimens for exhibiting. Special colors are used but I don’t know exactly what – I can ask if you are interested. There is no ohter way of exposing herbarium specimens for longer period in my knowledge.

Best regards
Lennart Lennuk
Head of collections
Estonian Museum of Natural History
(+372) 6603404, 56569916

From: Nhcoll-l [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Waller
Sent: Monday, March 7, 2022 6:59 PM
To: Hawkins, Rebecca Keanni <rebecca.hawkins at ku.edu>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] How to display herbarium specimens without color fading

Kiri on saadetud väljastpoolt valitsemisala. Ärge avage kirjaga kaasa tulnud linke või manuseid enne, kui olete saatja õigsuses ja sisu turvalisuses kindel.
Hi Rebecca,
Always good to try some informal experiments. Indeed, it is not surprising that filtering UV would not reduce fading rate. It is interesting to compare how chlorophyll “sees” light with how people see light (see, for example, https://www.demegrow.com/blogs/research/70623171-what-plants-see-separating-lumens-from-effective-par-epar)
In a broad Getty Conservation Institute study (attached) removing oxygen during exposure led to a 10 to 20 times reduction in discoloration of herbarium specimens provided by the Canadian Museum of Nature. That seems like a pretty good reduction but, when you think about it, that just changes the lifetime on exhibit from a few months to a few years. Strategies to limit light levels and exposure times would help and I can imagine some other strategies to reduce loss in value (perhaps protecting a part of the specimen from light would reduce the loss of value by keeping that part unaltered). I think that would be interesting to discuss with curators, researchers, and other collection users but I think we do best to consider display of herbarium specimens  a consumptive use of the color of those specimens.
Rob
Robert Waller, PhD, CAPC, FIIC
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From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>> On Behalf Of Hawkins, Rebecca Keanni
Sent: March 5, 2022 5:11 PM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] How to display herbarium specimens without color fading

Hello everyone,

Is there a way to display herbarium specimens without color fading? As I understand it, exposing an herbarium specimen to sunlight (and maybe even artificial light?) will cause the specimen's colors to fade to various shades of brown. This question isn't for any specific project or exhibition, just something I've been curious about ever since I helped an herbarium make a small university display and its specimens turned brown after a few months of summer sun.

I did try an informal experiment where I put an herbarium specimen in a glass picture frame with UV blocking window film. However, the specimen's color faded just as fast as a control specimen without the film. This suggests that there was fault with the film itself or my application of it, or even that UV light alone is not what is causing the color of herbarium specimens to fade.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Rebecca Hawkins (she/her)
M.A. Student in Museum Studies
University of Kansas
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