NC State University Insect Museum

I finally posted the project description from our 2008 NSF Biological Research Collections proposal on the Web for all to read. Things are moving quickly here - we ordered 50 new 24-drawer cabinets, started acquiring our imaging equipment (may be a few surprises here - stay tuned!), and are about to test some barcode printers. It's all happening before I had a chance to catch my breath and describe our proposed museum improvements. Here's a quick summary of our motivation for writing this proposal:

1. We are functionally full (96% capacity), paralyzed by the lack of expansion space.
2. Our large array of older, poorly sealing cabinets necessitates vast amounts of fumigant (naphthalene), which makes our work environment unpleasant and potentially unhealthy.
3. Our outdated data base did not include specimen-level data (e.g., collecting event), and the public version is not update-able.
4. Other than this website and blog and our outreach activities we have almost no public presence.

You can probably predict our proposed solutions to these conundrums. We are replacing 56 of our old, sloppy 12-drawer cabinets with 28 shiny, new 24-drawer cabinets, and adding an additional 22 of these 24-drawer cabinets for expansion. The gaskets on the new cabinets enable us to reduce our naphthalene by about 90% (freeing up 40 drawers worth of space, if you can believe it). We'll also be barcoding, imaging, and databasing specimens (and even imaging drawers), with all of our data managed in and availed on the Web through mx. We'll cap off this project with a series of educational displays and materials (a physical public presence!).

There will be a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering before I can show off the cool tricks we have in mind for our specimen data. In the meantime I hope that posting the proposal facilitates dialog about what we're attempting to accomplish and how. We're committed to posting more info about efficient workflows, failed experiments, task benchmarking, and other relevant curatorial issues as we work our way through the process. Any feedback is appreciated!