An Alternative Shelving Arrangement for Natural History Collection Objects to Optimize Space and Task Efficiency

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dc.creatorCohen, Adam
dc.creatorHendrickson, Dean
dc.creatorCasarez, Melissa
dc.date.accessioned2021-06-04T15:14:53Z
dc.date.available2021-06-04T15:14:53Z
dc.date.issued2019-09-01
dc.description.abstractA taxonomic and alphabetic arrangement (TAA) of objects on shelves has prevailed in fluid-preserved natural history collections while they were managed by scientists for their own research. Now most collections are databased and internet-accessible to facilitate very different forms of research accomplished remotely by researchers who require less physical access to specimens. The collections staff who make those data available struggle to manage collection growth with limited space and budgets, while demands on them are increasing, necessitating task and space-efficient collection management solutions. We describe an alternative arrangement of objects based on their size and catalog number (OCA) that capitalizes on modern databases. Our partial implementation of this system facilitated pragmatic between-system comparisons of space use and staff time required for routine tasks. Our OCA allows 17% more jars to be stored in a given space than a TAA (not counting spaces left for growth), but adjusting vertical spacing of shelves could increase that to 115%. Ten of 15 staff tasks were more efficiently accomplished in the OCA section of the collection, and we propose ways to improve efficiency for three of the four tasks for which the TAA outperformed the OCA.en_US
dc.description.departmentIntegrative Biologyen_US
dc.identifier.citationAdam E. Cohen, Dean A. Hendrickson, Melissa J. Casarez; An Alternative Shelving Arrangement for Natural History Collection Objects to Optimize Space and Task Efficiency. Collection Forum 1 September 2019; 33 (1): 55–72. doi: https://doi.org/10.14351/0831-4985-33.1.55en_US
dc.identifier.doi10.14351/0831-4985-33.1.55
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2152/86304
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/13255
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherAllen Pressen_US
dc.relation.ispartofTNHC - Publicationsen_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States*
dc.rights.restrictionOpenen_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/*
dc.subjectBiodiversityen_US
dc.subjectMuseumen_US
dc.subjectNatural History Collectionen_US
dc.subjectFluid Preserved Collectionen_US
dc.subjectShelving Systemen_US
dc.subjectSpace Efficiencyen_US
dc.subjectOptimized Shelvingen_US
dc.subjectCurationen_US
dc.subjectIchthyology Collectionen_US
dc.titleAn Alternative Shelving Arrangement for Natural History Collection Objects to Optimize Space and Task Efficiencyen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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