Introduction

A director of Burke Museum giving a guest a tour of the deer gallery

"Burke Museum Tour" by Seattle City Council is marked with CC0 1.0.

The value of specimens

The purpose of any museum institution involves fostering curiosity, discovery, and education of ideas in its guests. With these goals, the effectiveness of a museum is almost entirely dependent on its ability to engage visitors. Proficient use of specimens and labels allow visitors to make connections to the concepts they are learning, enhancing the impact of those messages.

As scientific collections grow, especially those of small-scale institutions, maintaining suitable organization for specimens is a crucial matter. At the Hefner Museum of Natural History, the mammalogy scientific collection was systematized to achieve the following:

Specimen preservation
Accessibility for academic use
Modern phylogenetic approach
Enhanced guest experience

Preservation

A number of protective measures were taken to prevent degradation of the specimens.

Academic Accessibility

The collection was made available to classroom lectures and student research.

Modern Approach

Specimens were organized in a method that reflects modern phylogenetic research.

Guest Experience

The collection was arranged as an exhibit that prompts guests to make connections.

Challenges

There were a number of challenges of collection systematization addressed in this project. Each of the following topics influenced how the collection was organized and arranged.

Agents of deterioration

When working with scientific collections, there are a variety of potential hazards that pose risk of degrading specimens. It is important to be mindful of aspects including but not limited to:

Physical force
Vandalism
Pests
Light
Temperature
Moisture

Oversized specimens

With the wide range of sizes, especially those of Mammalian collections, it is not uncommon for large-sized specimens to exceed capacity of cabinet drawers. Maintaining logical organization while incorporating space accommodations for larger specimens can be difficult task and often requires compromise of space efficiency.

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