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

Mon Mar 7 13:00:34 EST 2022

Hi Rebecca,

I see that Rob beat me with a great response on light fading of herbariums specimens on exhibit.  I will follow up with how we display herbarium specimens today at the Canadian Museum of Nature.

There really is no “safe” way to display plant specimens on exhibit.  Especially when dealing with long term display.  At the Canadian Museum of Nature, we only display specimens from our herbarium for short temporary exhibitions. We have done Microfade testing in the past to help us recommend safe light levels and length of display for some of our specimens.  Our conclusion was that plant specimens from our collections are not to be used for any long-term exhibitions.  We use two solutions for displaying plant specimens in permanent or long-term exhibitions.
1) we collect and prepare specimens specifically for the exhibition.   We also have back up plants for replacement if there is any fading over time.
2) for the display the display of specific herbarium specimens from our collection (historic, type specimens, etc.), we have started to use prints of the herbarium sheets.  We use high quality scans and printing to create very realistic herbarium sheet prints for display (they look like the real thing when on display). The exhibit clearly identifies the herbarium sheets as prints on the display labels.

These two options help us display more herbarium specimens without the risk of loss of colour and value to the specimens from our collections.

Luci

Luci Cipera
Conservator, Collection Services and Information Management
Conservatrice-restauratrice, Service des collections et gestion de l’information
Canadian Museum of Nature / Musée canadien de la nature
613-364-4079
lcipera at nature.ca<mailto:lcipera at nature.ca>

Robert Waller <rw at protectheritage.com>; Hawkins, Rebecca Keanni <rebecca.hawkins at ku.edu>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Robert Waller
Sent: Monday, March 7, 2022 11:59 AM
To: Hawkins, Rebecca Keanni <rebecca.hawkins at ku.edu>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [EXT]Re: [Nhcoll-l] How to display herbarium specimens without color fading

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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
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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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