AMNH-IP-Columbia University Collection

  This week we began to finish up this project as next week will be our last to work on it. While we spent our time finishing up data entry and taking our last pictures of the specimens, we also selected specimens for what will be taking up the majority of our last week, cat-scanning them. This week we had the opportunity to tour the invertebrate zoology dry collection, led by Christine Johnson, a Curatorial Associate. We started with a coral collection from the 1800s. This collection and the room it is housed in recently received a complete overhaul. The room was renovated to support healthier conditions for the specimens as well as placing them in brand new cabinets. The specimens were cleaned, sorted, and labeled, much like the work we are doing now. This beautifully organized collection gave us a peek into what the future of our collection will look like and how important the work that we're doing is. One cabinet in the coral collection Next, we got to see the entomology collec

This week, we gained a new member to the project. Susan Mac Low is from Davis, California and previously worked as a knitting instructor. She enjoys working with concrete objects and tools. Her experience in this area includes woodwork, origami, knitting, and electronics. She is interested in medicine, engineering, and fiber arts, and wants to become a lab tech in the future. Susan adding labels to specimens This week, we continued our work on cleaning and re-housing echinoderm specimens. We also continued to input the fossils into the museums database, as well as taking photographs, and attaching the images to the fossils within the database. This Monday, we were lucky to learn how to do scientific illustrations by a science illustrator, Patricia Wynn. We learned to measure and follow the proportions of the specimen to begin the sketch, then to add some detail, and how to transfer the sketch using tracing paper. We look forward to practicing the skills she taught us and finishing our

  Emus running everywhere! Well, not everywhere, just on the computer. That's because this week we’ve started digitally cataloging the echinoderm fossils in earnest, using a program called Electronic Museum, or EMu for short. The cataloging process ties together all of our previous work up to this point, as we attach our new specimen photographs and type out the information from the old specimen labels. (Not all labels are created equally, as it turns out– I’m looking at you, Corroded Paper-scrap-affixed-to-rock.) The bane of my existence. I dare you to try and decipher it . We got a sneak peek into what the future holds for our echinoderms early this week, when we took a trip to the type specimen room. First, we paid pilgrimage to the dusty hole in the wall where our echinoderms used to stay. Needless to say, they were in deep need of the attention we’ve been giving them.  The old crib. So dusty. In the type room, the situation was much better. A filing cabinet at the front of the

  This week we have continued to rehouse and catalog our specimens, as well as learning how to photograph them. We were taught how to properly light and focus a photo depending on the unique shape of each fossil so we can now begin to photograph the specimens as we catalog. We did two very exciting things on Wednesday, the first being a presentation by Melanie Hopkins entitled, “Introduction to Taxonomy, Nomenclature and Classification as applied to Curation and Digitization of Fossil Invertebrate Collections.” We learned more about type specimens, further explaining our tour of the type room last Friday. We talked extensively about the rules and issues surrounding a specimen being named multiple times, being too hastily named as a different species, or accidentally included in an already existing species. It was overall a very interesting and informative presentation which informed a lot of the labeling issues we have encountered during or last week and a half of rehousing. Melanie Ho