Support for the Bird Collection at Delaware Museum of Natural History

支持特拉华自然历史博物馆的鸟类收藏

• 批准号: 0346380
• 负责人: Jean Woods
• 金额: $ 40.85万
• 依托单位: DELAWARE MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-01 至 2007-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0346380&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Support; Bird; Collection; Delaware; Museum

A grant has been awarded to the Delaware Museum of Natural History under the direction of Dr. Jean L. Woods and Gene K. Hess to address storage deficiencies in the bird specimen collections. Current threats to the collections include overcrowding, damage from insects, and exposure to non-archival materials. The bird collections at the Museum are the fifteenth largest in North America (119,000 specimens) and include significant numbers of specimens from the Philippines, Mexico and North America. The Museum also curates the second largest collection of bird eggs in North America. These collections represent an historical record of bird life from these locations, and are inherently irreplaceable. This grant will allow the Delaware Museum of Natural History to make major strides in safeguarding the collections. The grant will fund installation of a compact storage system and new museum-quality specimen cabinets to house the bird skin collection. The compact storage system will accommodate the collections by using approximately 25% less space than currently used. This will ease overcrowding in the collections and allow sufficient space for expansion well into the future. It also will provide additional workspace for Staff and visitors. The new specimen cabinets should prevent further insect damage to the specimens and meet all current standards for use of archival quality materials in the storage of natural history collections. These improvements will ensure that the Museum will be able to continue its mission "to excite and inform people about the natural world." Scientists from all over the world use specimens from the collections in their research. Dozens of scientific papers and reports have been published based on this research. The Museum's collections also greatly benefit the local community. Specimens from the bird collections are used in long-term and temporary exhibits in the Museum's galleries. Specimens are also used in outreach programs, many of which target underserved communities. Specimens are loaned to local universities for use in their classes and students can earn college credit by completing projects in the collections. Artists and photographers also use the collections. In summary, the improvements resulting from this grant will benefit all of the people who currently use the collections and ensure that the collections will be safeguarded to inform and inspire future generations.

特拉华州自然历史博物馆在Jean L.博士的指导下获得了一笔赠款。Woods和Gene K.赫斯，以解决在鸟类标本收藏的存储不足。 目前对馆藏的威胁包括过度拥挤、昆虫的破坏和接触非档案材料。 该博物馆的鸟类收藏是北美第十五大（119，000个标本），包括来自菲律宾，墨西哥和北美的大量标本。 该博物馆还收藏了北美第二大鸟蛋收藏。 这些藏品代表了这些地方鸟类生活的历史记录，并且具有不可替代性。 这笔赠款将使特拉华州自然历史博物馆在保护藏品方面取得重大进展。这笔赠款将资助安装一个紧凑的存储系统和新的博物馆质量的标本柜，以容纳鸟类皮肤收集。 紧凑型储存系统将容纳收藏品，所用空间比目前少约25%。 这将缓解藏品的过度拥挤，并为未来的扩展提供足够的空间。 它还将为工作人员和来访者提供更多的工作空间。 新的标本柜应防止昆虫对标本的进一步损害，并符合在自然历史收藏品储存中使用档案质量材料的所有现行标准。 这些改进将确保博物馆能够继续其使命“激发和告知人们关于自然世界的信息。“来自世界各地的科学家在他们的研究中使用这些标本。 基于这项研究发表了数十篇科学论文和报告。 博物馆的收藏也使当地社区受益匪浅。 从鸟类收藏的标本用于长期和临时展览在博物馆的画廊。标本还用于外展计划，其中许多计划针对服务不足的社区。 标本被借给当地大学用于课堂，学生可以通过完成收藏中的项目获得大学学分。 艺术家和摄影师也使用这些收藏品。 总而言之，这笔赠款带来的改进将使目前使用这些藏品的所有人受益，并确保这些藏品得到保护，以告知和激励后代。