Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019 - 32

Features
klers must allow the even, vertical passage of water through
their whole height. This is achieved by using perforated or
metal-mesh shelves. The ANSP tray system can still be used
in such cases, but a set of holes would need to be drilled or
punched in the tray floor to prevent water from being channeled only to the back and front edges of the shelves. This
could be done by making the initial flat metal blank as a
single punching complete with the drain holes rather than
by a series of cuts, though this would likely increase tooling
costs.
Unpacking carousels will increase the number of containers and probably the total volume of fluid in the room, with
a concomitant increase in total weight. An increase in fluid
volume can be expected if the internal containers in carousels
are smaller than the minimum size (4 dram/15 ml) usable
in the tray system. Though most purpose-built fluid storage
rooms will have floors capable of taking increased loading (as
was the case at ANSP), this factor must also be considered at
the planning stage.
If cost is a critical issue there is technically no need for
powder coating or any other finish as bare 5052 aluminum
is exceptionally corrosion-resistant. In addition, fluid collection space is expensive to build and maintain, and it usually
cannot be expanded into adjacent areas. The design described
here will achieve an equal level of compression whether collections are arranged systematically or by catalog number.
The latter arrangement allows retrieval and return of lots to
be carried out easily by non-taxon specialists, which may
broaden the involvement of new constituencies in collections
management, thereby alleviating constraints on professional
staffing levels.
Acknowledgements
This design was part of a comprehensive plan to rehouse the
ANSP fluid mollusk collection that was funded through NSF
grant DBI-CSBR 1458171 (Gary Rosenberg and the author).
I thank Dr. Rosenberg and Ms. Nasreen Aziz (ANSP) for
advice and comment at all stages of the design development
process. The research into existing fluid storage systems
that laid the groundwork for the ANSP rehousing included
note-taking in wet collections over many years. Many thanks
to my hosts on those occasions: Dr. S. Darkina (Zoological
Museum, Far East State University, Vladivostok, Russia),
Dr. K. Hasegawa (National Museum of Nature and Science,
Tsukuba, Japan), Ms. V. Heros (Museum National d'Histoire
Naturelle, Paris, France), Dr. S. Ishida (Osaka Museum of
Natural History, Japan), Ms. A. MacLellan (Natural History
Museum, London, UK), Dr. W. Moser (Smithsonian Institution, Suitland, Maryland, USA), Dr. M. Motokawa (Kyoto
University Museum, Japan), Dr. T. Sasaki (University of
Tokyo Museum, Japan), Dr. J. Slapcinsky (Florida Museum
32 * SPNHC Connection

of Natural History, USA), Dr. T. von Rintelen (Museum für
Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany) and Dr. N. Yeung (Bernice
Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii). I would also like
to acknowledge Drs. K. Sendall and H. Gartner (RBMC) for
the loan of their plastic bottle tray and discussion of its design
and Dr. J. Gerber (Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA) for
useful input and providing the specifications of their tray system. The production specifications of the ANSP system were
finalized in collaboration with Mr. Bruce Danielson of Delta
Designs Ltd, Topeka, Kansas, USA, which manufactured all
our trays.
Paul Callomon
Department of Malacology
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. 19103
prc44@drexel.edu

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019

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