A Mobile Storage System for the Vascular Herbarium of the University of Arizona (ARIZ)

亚利桑那大学(亚利桑那)的维管植物标本馆是该地区最大的标本馆，目前约有345,000张标本。它拥有亚利桑那州和墨西哥索诺拉州最大的植物收藏，以及来自墨西哥西南部和西北部干旱地区所有其他地区的大量植物。它是一个非常活跃的标本馆，无论是从在这里进行的活跃的研究项目、贷款和与其他机构的研究人员的互动、各级学生的使用，还是对外活动。由于其非常活跃的收集支持研究的计划，该标本馆正开始经历一场太空危机。尽管关于获取的严格政策要求新获得的标本具有研究价值，建立在优势领域，而不是过度复制，但情况仍是如此。如果不增加存储容量，标本收藏很快就会陷入拒绝标本的境地，或者以一种使研究人员和学生无法访问的方式存储标本，对于像亚利桑那州这样活跃的标本馆来说，这两者都是站不住脚的。同时，几乎没有合适和可用的额外物理空间。为了缓解这一危机，该项目将提供一个移动存储系统(压实器)的安装。压实机通过减少多排标本箱之间的永久开放通道(或在其他应用的情况下减少书架、病历等)的数量，大大增加了相同物理空间内的存储容量。该项目的总影响将使该标本馆目前的容量增加50%，并将其目前的增长轨迹延续近25年。

The vascular herbarium at the University of Arizona (ARIZ), with about 345,000 sheets at the present time, is the largest herbarium in the region. It holds the largest collection of plants from Arizona and from the state of Sonora, Mexico, and significant holdings from all other parts of the arid southwest and northwestern Mexico. It is an extremely active herbarium, whether measured in terms of active research projects that are based here, loans and interactions with researchers at other institutions, use by the students of all levels, or out-reach activities.Because of its very active program of collecting in support of research, the herbarium is beginning to experience a space crisis. This is the case despite a rigorous policy regarding acquisitions which demands that newly accessioned specimens have research value, build on areas of strength, and not represent excessive duplication. Without increasing storage capacity, the collection will soon be in the position of rejecting specimens or of storing them in a fashion that renders them inaccessible to researchers and students, neither of which is tenable for a herbarium as active as ARIZ. At the same time, there is little additional physical space readily that is both suitable and available.To alleviate this crisis, this project will provide for the installation a mobile of the storage system (compactors). Compactors substantially increase storage capacity within the same physical space by reducing the number of permanently open aisles between rows of herbarium cases (or of bookshelves, medical records, etc., in the case of other applications). The total impact of the project will enable the herbarium to increase its current capacity by 50% and to continue its present growth trajectory for nearly 25 years.