Curation and Revitalization of the Invertebrate Paleontology Collection

佛罗里达州立博物馆位于盖恩斯维尔的佛罗里达大学校区，收藏着东南部最大的无脊椎动物化石。这些标本中的大多数都是从全州分布的高度化石地层中收集的。其余的主要来自海湾和大西洋沿岸平原以及环加勒比海周围的地点。无脊椎动物化石为我们提供了一个独特的机会，让我们了解整个新生代(地球历史的最后6500万年)这一地区存在的环境条件，并欣赏发生的实质性生物变化。在过去的十年里，这些藏品在没有策展人或收藏经理的情况下受到了影响。尽管如此，私人捐赠的化石仍在源源不断地涌入，而佛罗里达大学的教职员工和学生则从他们的研究中储存了相当数量的化石材料。这一系列事件导致大量未整理和未编目的标本积压。因此，无脊椎动物古生物科新招聘的工作人员面临的最重要的任务之一就是减少大量的策展积压。该项目为解决这一问题提供了资金。该项目的目标包括通过编制和编目数千件最重要的标本批次，使整个编目收藏计算机化，以及编制最新的类型目录和馆藏摘要，从而大幅减少馆藏积压。这些目标的实现将极大地影响收藏品的意义及其作为国家研究资源的价值。计算机化将使科学家能够快速搜索和扫描数据文件，并对他们所需的信息进行复杂的排序。出版类型目录和馆藏摘要将有助于科学界熟悉馆藏资源。当无脊椎动物古生物收藏的内容和组织被公布后，更多的地球科学家将能够利用其中包含的大量独特材料。

The Florida State Museum, located on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, contains the largest collection of fossil invertebrates in the southeast. Most of these specimens were collected from highly fossiliferous strata that occur throughout the state. The remainder derive principally from sites around the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plain and the circum- Caribbean. The fossil invertebrates provide us with a unique opportunity to understand the environmental conditions which existed in this part of the world throughout the Cenozoic Era (last 65 million years of Earth history) and to appreciate the substantial biological changes which have occurred. Over the last decade, the collection has suffered without a curator or collection manager. Nevertheless, private donations of fossils continued to pour in while faculty and students at the University of Florida deposited considerable amounts of fossil materials from their research efforts. This combination of events resulted in a tremendous backlog of uncurated and uncatalogued specimens. Therefore, one of the most important tasks facing the newly hired staff of the invertebrate paleontology division is to reduce the large curatorial backlog. This project provides funds to attack this problem. The goals of the project involve substantially reducing the curation backlog by preparing and cataloguing several thousand of the most important specimen lots, computerizing the entire catalogued collection, and preparing an up-dated type catalogue and summary of holdings. Attainment of these goals will affect dramatically the significance of the collection and its value as a national research resource. Computerization will allow scientists to search and scan the data files quickly and to perform complex sorts for the information they desire. Publication of a type catalogue and summary of holdings will help familiarize the scientific community with the resources in the collection. When the contents and organization of the invertebrate paleontology collection are publicized, many more earth scientists will be able to take advantage of the extensive amount of unique material contained therein.