The Collection's Collectors website is part of "Preserving 150 years of Iowa's fossil collecting heritage," a project partially funded by the Resource Enhancement and Protection - Historical Resource Development Program of the State Historical Society of Iowa. The University of Iowa Paleontology Repository's Rhodes Memorial Fund is also supporting this project.
Over the past 150 years, since its creation as the Cabinet of Natural History in 1855, the UI fossil collection has grown through faculty and field collecting, deposit of research material and donations from the public. The Iowa public in particular has been instrumental in expanding the collection. This website recognizes and celebrates their efforts.
The goals of the project are to:
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making an inventory of all collectors
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preserving and digitizing historical labels
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physically and digitally preserving original field notebooks and catalogues
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archiving boxes of old correspondence and photographs
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creating short biographies of collectors whenever we can find information on the internet, in literature, and in the UI Archive.
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creating an image resource of collectors' handwriting
See full proposal.
Methods and standards
Kristin Baum, UI Libraries Conservation Lab, trained us in paper cleaning and repair. We use eraser crumbs to clean labels, and tinted japanese paper and methyl cellulose/wheat paste adhesive for repair. A great resource is: Dry Methods for Surface Cleaning of Paper available from the Canadian conservation Institute.
Nancy Kraft, UI Preservation Librarian, gave us advice on digitizing historical labels, field notebooks, specimen catalogues and glass lantern slides. We use an Epson Perfection V700 scanner capable of 6400 dpi resolution with flatbed and transparency scanning.
Collection's Collectors
Label in old box before cleaning
After cleaning, in new box
Label during cleaning
