Support for the Field Museum Fossil Mammal Collection: A New Collection Facility

9631431 Flynn菲尔德自然历史博物馆的哺乳动物化石收藏是一个重要的国家和国际系统和古生物学资源的研究和教育。 它包括60，000多个编目标本。其中20，000份是自1981年以来收集的，这意味着与它们有关的数据异常完整。 然而，这种增长速度使标本馆变得非常拥挤，这对标本来说是一种危险;此外，几年来，不可能把所有的哺乳动物化石标本都放在相邻的箱子里。 菲尔德博物馆最近建造了一个新的空间来容纳它的某些收藏品。该项目将在新空间的一部分安装压实机，用新的箱子填充这些箱子，并将整个哺乳动物化石收集到一个连续的箱子部分。 此举将加强标本的管理和保护，使收藏品更容易用于教育和研究，并实现更有效的收藏管理。这个价值110万美元的项目由NSF系统学生态学研究收藏项目和菲尔德博物馆合作资助，该项目提供了约55%的建筑和设备成本，学生学费和员工时间。

9631431 Flynn The fossil mammal collections at the Field Museum of Natural History is an imortant national and international systematic and paleontological resource for research and education. It comprises more than 60,000 catalogued specimens. Of these, 20,000 have been collected since 1981, which means that the data associated with them is exceptionally complete. This rate of growth, however, has rendered the collection very overcrowded, which is a danger to the specimens; in addition, for some years it has not been possible to house all of the fossil mammal specimens in contiguous cases. The Field Museum recently constructed a new space to house certain of its collections. This project will install compactors in a portion of the new space, fill these with new cases, and move the entire fossil mammal collection into one contiguous section of cases. Such a move will enhance curation and conservation of the specimens, make the collection much more accessible for use in education and research, and enable more efficient collection management. This $1.1 million project is funded in partnership between the Research Collections in Systematics & Ecology program of the NSF and the Field Museum, which is providing approximately 55% of the total in construction and equipment costs, student tuition, and staff time.