We’ve been systematically evaluating (“profiling” in curators’ parlance) the condition of the Frost Museum research collection for the last few months, an exercise that should give us a better idea of which areas of our holdings need special attention. The pinned collection and Odonata have been scored already, and the results are about what you’d expect for an older collection (no overly nasty surprises, thankfully). More on that later. Up next is an exploration of our slide-mounted insect collection. I don’t have a lot of experience with slides, at least historically, so here’s a brief solicitation of feedback.
Our scoring system for the pinned material went from 0–7, with 0 reserved for the worst of the worst (an emergency curation situation, involving loose specimens, dermestid pests, etc.), and 7 referring to a container (drawer) that is fully digitized and perfectly curated. What would a 0–7 scale look like for a slide collection? Our scorable unit is a slide box. Here’s a draft:
0 = slide box has lost its structural integrity (won’t close, bottom falling out, etc.) or the slides inside are unlabeled or broken or slide labels have fallen off. Here are three examples of what I would score as a 0:
![](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5492/9096156760_bddcb49f6f.jpg)
![](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7393/9096157152_c7dd566ba7.jpg)
![](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5512/9093931171_9dab05ff18.jpg)
Ok, A profile score of 0 seems easy to define. What about the other levels?
1 = Container is sound, if not ideal (that is, it doesn’t match the rest of your system), but it holds a broad mix of taxa, from mites (Acari) to fleas (Siphonaptera) to whatever; it’s not a loanable unit.
2 = Container is a standard 100-slide box, in good shape, and is labeled on the outside. Specimens are determined minimally to family and sorted accordingly (i.e., a box contains one family); these are loanable units. Specimens aren’t necessarily mounted in an archival medium (e.g., some might be in Hoyer’s).
![](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7460/9016551572_eda2936f2a.jpg)
3 = Slides are stored horizontally in a box that meets the conditions outlined for a score of 2. Specimens are preserved in Canada balsam and are clearly visible (they’re good preparations). Material might not be incorporated into main collection (e.g., a returned loan, sitting in a receiving section of the shelf). Specimens determined minimally to species.
4 = Material is part of main collection, but the box may not have standard header cards, and/or no expansion space. Slides have unique identifiers. Taxon names have been cataloged.
5 = Header cards are there for each taxon, along with adequate space (minimally 20%) for additional new material within box. Number of specimens per taxon is documented in the catalog.
6 = Specimens arranged by collecting event, and data captured digitally, perhaps using non-standard method (spreadsheet, word processing file, alternative database).
7 = All specimens databased for collecting event, georeference, species name and author. Data are readily available through the World Wide Web.
Anything missing? We have an incredible array of slides, built up over the decades by John O. Pepper (aphids expert, now deceased) and former curator K. C. Kim (Anoplura expert, still active) so I expect this collection to profile well!
Your image of a 2 is what I have been scoring a 1 because the specimen isn’t determined at least to family, according to the profiling scheme. There were several boxes of slides that looked exactly like that – same labeling, same host, same locality. If it is a series of the same species (likely) with only a few identified (perhaps in a different box), maybe it’s not as big of a deal if the specimen isn’t labeled at least to family.
Maybe having host information should be incorporated into the scheme as being more important than having the specimen identified to family? It could be very helpful to making a species-level identification on a specimen that isn’t identified to species. Is splitting the profiling scheme for slide collections into “Slide collections of parasites” and “Slide collections of non-parasites” to accommodate host info over-complicating things?