CONTRIBUTIONS TO MUSEUM TECHNIQUE 

 I. CATALOGUING MUSEUM SPECIMENS^'^ 



An essential feature in connection with a museum, is 

 the maintenance of a careful record or history of the ob- 

 jects forming the various collections, since a specimen 

 deficient in data referring to the locality, date and condi- 

 tions under which it was obtained, is practically valueless 

 in comparison with one correctly catalogued.^ 



The inadequacy of the systems commonly employed, 

 even in prominent museums of America and Europe,^ by 

 which rarely more than a number, name, and locality of 

 uncertain value, are more or less heterogeneously arranged 

 in cumbersome and often inaccessible volumes,^ is ap- 

 parent to anyone who has attempted to locate a desired 

 specimen, or when fortunate enough to ascertain the 

 location, to obtain concise information concerning it. 

 This condition of affairs is particularly obvious to the 

 systematist wishing to study the material belonging to a 

 certain group or from a definite area in a museum, for he 

 may indeed be considered a fortunate individual if, after 

 the loss of much time examining the collections on exhi- 

 bition and in storage, both catalogued and uncatalogued, 

 and in consulting the various volumes in which the data 



■"^Contributions from the Biological Laboratory of Kenyon College, No. 5. 



^I have merely given expression to the principle laid down by Goode in his 

 admirable paper on museum administration (Annual Report of the Museums Asso- 

 ciation, 1895, also republished in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 1897) where he says, "A museum specimen without a history is practically without 

 value and had much better be destroyed than preserved." 



^The museums as well as many other institutions abroad, are subservient to 

 precedents which, under the changing conditions, have too aften outlived their use- 

 fulness. The remarks of Dr. Meyer in a note on a succeeding page (unintentionally 

 on his part) furnish excellent evidence in corroboration of the above statement. 



^Both the Field Museum of Chicago and the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh 

 make use to a limited extent of card or slip catalogues in connection with the book 

 system. From their form and size (3^ x 9j-^ in the former, 5 J/2 x 8 inches in 

 the latter museum) method of filing, and arrangement of data, however, it is 

 questionable whether a decided advance has been made over the old book catalogue. 



•■Reprinted from The American Naturalist, vol. 41 (1907), pp. 77-96. 



