Yale University (Peabody Museum of Natural History)

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History will significantly improve storage conditions and accessibility for their herpetology and ichthyology collections currently stored in substandard cabinetry. Specimens will be cleaned, photographed, and re-housed in high-quality cabinets, allowing the museum to alleviate overcrowding. All specimens will be photographed, reducing unnecessary handling of the specimens, and taxonomic determinations of each specimen will be verified and attributed correctly in the online database. Students will update specimen records by entering the content of hand-written labels into the database. In addition, the museum will use barcodes to track specimen used for research, teach, and exhibit purposes. The project ensures the long-term preservation of these collections while increasing their availability to students and researchers at Yale and to a wider audience through the online database.