Secure Storage and Computerization of Records of the University of California, Riverside, Nematode Collection

加州大学河滨线虫收藏馆(UCRNC)是世界上最大的植物寄生线虫博物馆之一，有1.3万瓶大容量标本和近15万份标本放在3.2万张幻灯片上进行显微镜检查。来自世界各地的科学家使用这些收藏，研究线虫，用于许多学科的研究，包括农业、生态学、遗传学、分类学、进化论和无脊椎动物动物学。该收藏保存了新物种描述的原始标本、作为先前研究记录的凭证标本，以及提供线虫多样性洞察的全球调查的标本。由于线虫是最丰富和最多样化的多细胞生物之一，因为它们经常被用作基础生物学研究的便利模型，而且在一些发展中国家，植物寄生形式是农业的限制因素，因此有效的博物馆资源是必不可少的。以前的NSF支持通过UCRNC的计算机化提供了方便的防火存储和可靠的记录更新，但资金仅足以存储和更新三分之二的收藏记录。目前的提议是将这些改进扩展到收藏的其余部分，并允许安全存储，以适应适度增长(增加3000张幻灯片)。将记录电脑化，不仅可以快速获取现有材料，还将仔细监测外借标本，并根据物种、宿主、地理区域、制备技术、收集或制备日期、分类类别、文献参考资料和其他参数编制交叉索引。UCRNC的计算机化也将为其他博物馆的有效编目提供一个模式。一种类似线虫学收集的通用格式将允许最终将几个收集的记录存储在一台计算机上，以便广泛获取合并的数据。

The University of California Riverside Nematode Collection (UCRNC) is one of the largest museums of economically important plant parasitic nematodes in the world, with 13,000 vials of bulked specimens and nearly 150,000 specimens mounted on 32,000 slides for microscopic examination. The collection is used by scientists from throughout the world, studying nematodes for research in many disciplines including agriculture, ecology, genetics, taxonomy, evolution, and invertebrate zoology. The collection conserves original specimens from descriptions of new species, voucher specimens as a record of previous research, and specimens from worldwide surveys which provide insight into the diversity of nematodes. Since nematodes are one of the most abundant and diverse multicellular organisms, since they frequently serve as a convenient model for research in fundamental biology, and since in some developing countries plant parasitic forms are the limiting factor in agriculture, efficient museum resources are essential. Previous NSF support provided convenient accessible fireproof storage and reliable updating of records through computerization of UCRNC, but funding was only adequate for storage and updating of records for two-thirds of the collection. The present proposal is to extend these improvements to the remainder of the collection and allow secure storage which will accommodate modest growth (3000 additional slides). Computerization of records will not only allow quick access of available material but will provide for careful monitoring of loaned specimens and cross-indexing according to species, host, geographical area, preparation technique, date of collection or preparation, taxonomic category, literature reference and other parameters. Computerization of UCRNC will also provide a model for efficient cataloguing of other museums. A common format for similar nematology collections will allow eventual storage of records of several collections on a single computer for widespread accessibility of the combined data.