Specimen Storage Equipment for New Mollusk Collection Facility

自1923年以来，圣巴巴拉自然历史博物馆一直是一个致力于收藏和研究的独立机构。博物馆的无脊椎动物学部门在过去十年中发展迅速，其软体动物收藏品现在包括近20万个标本批次和1,700多个模式标本。这个收藏品在北美名列前茅，是该地区特殊的软体动物储藏库之一。这些收藏品将搬进更大的新建宿舍，一个新的捐赠策展人最近已经填补了一个软体动物专家。埃里克·霍克伯格博士，软体动物馆长，已经制定了一个长期的增长和收藏策展计划。第一阶段是在最近完成的收藏大楼安装新的储藏柜。由南加州大学艾伦汉考克基金会捐赠的头足类动物收藏品将与其余的收藏品整合在一起。对圣巴巴拉自然历史博物馆软体动物收藏的拟议改进将使该机构成为一个不断发展的研究和策展中心。生态学、地理学、系统学和进化生物学领域的研究人员（仅举几例）将获得新的、容易获得的重要标本收藏。像这样的自然历史收藏品是生物多样性研究中不可或缺的资源。

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History has been an independent institution dedicated to collections and research since 1923. The Museum's Department of Invertebrate Zoology has grown dramatically during the past decade, and its mollusk collection now comprises nearly 200,000 specimen lots and more that 1,700 type specimens. This collection ranks among the finest in North America, and is one of the exceptional repositories for mollusks in the region. The collections will be moving into much larger, newly constructed quarters, and a new endowed Curatorship has recently been filled with a mollusk specialist. Dr. Eric Hochberg, Curator of Mollusks, has crafted a long-range plan for growth and curation of the collection. The first phase involves installation of new storage cabinets in the recently completed collections building. The cephalopod collection that was donated by the Allan Hancock Foundation of the University of Southern California will be integrated with the rest of the collection. The proposed improvements to the mollusk collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History will establish this institution as a growing center for research and curation. Researchers in the areas of ecology, biogeography, systematics, and evolutionary biology (to name a few) will be given new and easy access to important specimen collections. Natural history collections such as this are indispensable resources in the study of biological diversity.