A few years back Dr. Gary Rosenberg wrote a brief article for the COA
web site on how to organize a shell collection:

http://www.conchologistsofamerica.org/collecting/organizing.asp

Museum collections by and large are organized in a sequence of
families and genera that more or less reflect the sequence you find in
modern field guides and shells books. In some particular cases a
geographic subset(s) of the collection may be stored in separate, if
that makes it easier to retrieve specimens for a particular ongoing
study or project. However, only one numerical cataloguing sequence
should be used.

The main goal of your organization and sequence of lots in the
collection should be to make it easy to retrieve them when you need.
Usually, museums do not change the physical sequence of families and
genera in their drawers and cabinets as new taxonomic arrangements are
proposed. However, changes done by a visiting specialist working on a
particular family may prompt alterations in the cataloguing and
labeling of that particular group of species.

A good example of how we try to make retrieval easier in the
collection of the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum on Sanibel is our
physical arrangement of the cowrie collection. Although we follow the
modern systematic arrangement accepted for the family, no longer
including all species of the family in the genus Cypraea, but using
instead the older subgenus names at the genus rank (e.g., Lyncina,
Macrocypraea, etc., as genera), we still arrange all the cowrie
species in alphabetical sequence by specific epithet (the species
"name"). For instance, Erosaria acicularis comes before Macrocypraea
cervus (because 'a' comes before 'c' in the alphabet), irrespective of
the genera these species belong to. This is because people interested
in these species will know the specific epithet, but may not know the
genus to which that species is currently allocated.

If you want to retrieve all the species in the genus Macrocypraea for
a possible comparative study, your computer catalogue (in case you
decide to use one) will let you list all the species in that genus,
which then can be found in their respective drawers/slots in the
collection.

Cheers and happy collection organization,

José

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Scot Lewis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am wondering how everyone organizes their collections, within Genus. Alphabetical, by sub-genus,
> by location (Indo-Pacific, Carribean, etc.). I work with Olividae primarily, and can't decide how to
> place my shells in their drawers. I have been doing alphabetical, but as you all know, Olividae keeps
> morphing and I am wondering if there is a better system. I look forward to your ideas. I am sure
> museums and major collections have a system, or they would forever be moving shells around!
>
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--
_______________________________________________________
José H. Leal, Ph.D., Director
The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
Editor, The Nautilus
www.shellmuseum.org

3075 Sanibel-Captiva Road
Sanibel, FL 33957 USA
(239)395-2233
fax (239)395-6706

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