CSBR: Natural History: Enhancing paleontology collections in coordination with a new Burke Museum facility

为支持伯克博物馆的古生物学收藏，华盛顿大学获得了一个奖项。伯克的古生物学收藏品包括大约300万件物品，但其中相当一部分不容易向公众开放，甚至对研究人员和学者来说也是如此，因为它们目前被安置在不同的地点。该项目的一个主要目标是将所有这些场外收藏品汇集到一个新的设施中。新的伯克博物馆建筑将最大限度地提高藏品的可达性，并提供最佳的环境，配备现代化的温度和湿度控制（目前一些非现场设施无法提供）。此外，新建筑的设计特色是向公众开放实验室和收藏设施，以及两个教室，这将进一步提高公众和华盛顿大学学生对古生物学收藏的可及性。伯克博物馆整合了三个藏品，形成了三个非现场存储设施，这将提高化石的安全性，并提高了研究和教学使用的可及性和潜力。由于目前的安置，古生物馆藏严重压缩，可用于研究相关增长的空间有限。最近5年，三个主要藏品的增长率（无脊椎动物古生物学3%，古植物学46%，脊椎动物古生物学20%）显示了pi、他们的学生和其他伯克相关研究人员正在进行的研究的显著生产力。该合同的资金将用于存储设备，主要是橱柜和开放式货架单元，以确保有足够的空间继续生产。作为一个以大学为基础的自然历史博物馆，伯克博物馆非常重视在博物馆环境中培养未来的古生物学家。本科生和研究生将参与整个拟议的馆藏改进项目，让他们更深入地了解馆藏是如何创建、维护和使用的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

An award is made to the University of Washington to support the Burke Museum paleontology collection. The Burke's paleontology collection includes approximately 3 million objects, but a substantial number of these are not easily accessible to the public or even to researchers and scholars because they are currently housed offsite at a variety of locations. A primary goal of this project will be to bring together all of these offsite collections into a new facility. The new Burke Museum building will maximize accessibility to the collections, as well as to provide the best environment, with modern temperature and humidity controls (not available at some of the current offsite facilities). In addition, the design of the new building features labs and collections facilities visible to the public as well as two classrooms, which will further enhance the accessibility of the paleontology collections to the general public and students at the University of Washington.The Burke Museum consolidation of three collections form three offsite storage facilities will offer increased safety for the fossils and enhanced accessibility and potential for research and instructional use. As currently housed, the paleontology collections are severely compressed and the space available for research-related growth is limited. Recent 5-year growth rates for the three main collections (invertebrate paleontology 3%, paleobotany 46%, and vertebrate paleontology 20%) demonstrate remarkable productivity from the ongoing research of the PIs, their students, and other Burke-associated researchers. Funds from this award will be used for storage equipment, primarily cabinets and open-shelving units, to assure sufficient space for continued productivity. As a university-based natural history museum, the Burke places great importance on training future paleontologists in a museum environment. Undergraduate and graduate students will be employed throughout the proposed collections improvement project, giving them greater insight into how collections are created, maintained, and used.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.