Scientific collection
As a research collection is referred to
- Any systematic collection of objects for the study of nature or of human history
- As well as the institutions, organizations or sub-organizations that build such collections preserve, systematically open and make it usable and accessible. Often, these organizations also conduct research on the collection itself.
Important objects of research collections in the field of
- Geology, in particular minerals, rock samples and cores,
- In the field of biology, the plants, fungi, animals, bacteria, archaea and viruses and their remains.
- In the field of history, for example, wood samples with annual rings, pottery and coins not only for the study of these objects themselves, but also eg to determine the age of finds during excavations or ice cores and cores of sediments in lakes for the study of climate history.
Important goals of these collections are the items collected for research to make tangible and accessible, ready to hold reference objects for comparison purposes as well as the systematization and scientific names of the collected objects (taxonomy ).
In Germany, the German Research Foundation defines the term scientific collections as follows: ". Totality of objects that has a cultural and / or scientific value and is compiled for specific thematic priorities " This definition includes but then also show scientific collections and teaching collections with a. In many cases, collections are of course several purposes, research collections at universities including teaching and in some cases also as a show collection to the public.
Development
The development of the collections was historically first of all directories, catalogs, index cards, today supplemented by or replaced by databases with information such as scientific description, including picture, name, location, find circumstances, Aufsammlungsalter, fund age, scientific analysis, phylogenetic relationships, DNA and isotope analysis results, analysis of pollutants, references, condition of the property, owner and name changes.
To support the development and expansion of existing complementary specialist libraries in many collections.
Organization
Research collections and especially in museums, especially natural history museums, botanical gardens, universities and other research institutions entertain. There are also independent research collections, such as the Zoological State Collection Munich with over 20 million dead and stuffed animals for research purposes. Public authorities such as national geological agencies or Kriminalpolizeien entertain partly research collections.
Museums and Natural History Museums
Museums as operators of research collections differ from pure research collections in that part of the collection will also be shown publicly in a public collection. Shown is usually only a small fraction of the total collection. Also in museums with large exhibition space, such as the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the exhibited items are only a very small part of the sample over 22 million preserved organisms and other collection objects.
Largest German Natural History Museum is the Museum of Natural History in Berlin with over 30 million objects, including 9 million beetles and 275,000 jars with preserved in alcohol animals.
Geology
Special Collections:
- The IODP / ODP - core storage / Bremen Core Repository ( BCR) (International Core Repository at the University of Bremen) has a collection of 140 km of drill cores from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program with 190,000 individual pieces in a 1.100m ² large cooling Hall 4 ° C are stored.
- Among the most important geological collections in Europe include the Museum of the Earth in Warsaw with more than 170,000 minerals, meteorites, fossils and a collection of amber
Biology
Collected fossils of living organisms, in particular plants and animals, living plants and animals killed, and be protected from decay, for example, by drying or preparation, but also live plants, animals, bacteria and viruses.
Plant collections are referred to as herbarium. Live plants are collected trees in arboretums, aquariums, and partly in seed banks, as well as eg algae from the Culture Collection of Algae Göttingen ( SAG) in the Botanical Gardens. Live animals are collected in zoos and aquariums.
The great Old Botanical Garden of the University of Göttingen represents about a collection of 17,000 species.
Particularly well known in Germany are the major research collections of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research in Frankfurt am Main with over 22 million natural objects. Senckenberg offers to open up his collection to the SESAM database.
A special collection are the objects of German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures.
The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal sounds. It includes more than 175,000 audio recordings of 75 percent of all bird species. There are also an increasing number of insects, fish, frogs and mammals recordings. The video archive includes over 50,000 clips, with more than 3,500 species. The library is part of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University.