Guidelines for orienting visitors
Hosting a Visitor
If you are hosting visitors to the herbarium, please keep the following in mind:
- Visitors must make arrangements in advance to use the herbarium. They should contact Lisa who will add them to the Visitor List. Lisa emails this list every Friday so we know who to expect the following week. If you would like to be included on the email, please contact her.
- Accommodations in the Garden apartment and study rooms are arranged through Lisa.
- When a visitor arrives, s/he must sign the guest book on the fourth floor and get a Herbarium Pass and a key card through Lisa or Charlie.
- Each visitor must be oriented to the Herbarium by a herbarium staff member (usually Charlie, Edgardo, Matthew or Leanna for the Phan. and Ellen for the Crypt). If you want details on the orientation, ask one of these people.
- Tours of the herbarium, mounting room, imaging lab, for visitors not using the herbarium for research should be arranged in advance through Barbara, Matthew, or Nicole.
Guidelines for Assisting Visitors
1. Sign in: Take the visitors to sign the guest book and fill out a purpose-of-visit form which is next to the guest book on the fourth floor of the Library building. All visitors are required to wear a pass at all times. Give them a key card to the PSC and show them how it works, and (if applicable) a give them a key to their study room.
2. Information sheet: Give the visitors the printed information about the herbarium and its rules and ask them to read it before using the collection. You can find the printed copies next to the guest book. [update this section -- this sheet is filled out when they email to make visiting arrangements, yes?]
If this is a lichen visitor, take her or him to James Lendemer or Dick Harris. Lichens may only be studied with prior approval.
3. Loans: If the visitor wants to pull a loan, provide a loan request form and ask that it be filled out and left with the pile of pulled specimens in the herbarium. Make it clear that, before the loan can be approved or sent, the Director of the visitor’s herbarium must send a loan request (letter or email) to the Director of the NY Herbarium. Ask the visitor to leave all folders in the cases and the specimens selected for the loan should be left on the half-highs in the herbarium with the loan form.
If this is a cryptogamic loan, please put the specimen inside a temporary folder (on the half highs near the collections) and write the taxon name of the folder it was removed from on the outside if the name is different, or leave the specimen on top of the folder or box it was removed from. If nothing was removed from either the folder or cubby box, please carefully return the specimens to the cases in the correct order.
4. Sampling specimens: If the visitor wishes to remove material from specimens, give a copy of the Destructive Sampling Policy, if she/he doesn’t have it already, to read before doing any sampling. The form must be signed and given to you. The signed form should then go to Matthew Pace or to Ellen Bloch (if a cryptogamic specimen).
5. Library: If the visitor wishes to use the Library, give him/her the appropriate information (closed Monday, etc.) and take him/her there. Arrange for a tour for long- term visitors (one month minimum) with Linda DeVito or Stephen Sinon.
6. Press: Visitors interested in obtaining NYBG Press publications, ask them to check the Garden Shop first (which can be done online). If not available there, take them to the NYBG Press office and check there.
7. Filing system: When in the herbarium, explain the arrangement of specimens and point out the colorful map on the wall by the entrance of each floor. Stress our appreciation for their returning material to the cabinets in the correct order. For their reference, they can also view our herbarium use guidelines.
8. Supplies: Make sure that visitors have access to annotation slips and glue. Ask them to glue annotation labels with their new determinations to the vascular plantspecimens. In the crypt, put the new annotation under the lip of the packet or inside the box.
9. Handling specimens: Show the visitor how to handle folders of specimens: put the folder down on a flat surface and ask them not to turn specimens over. Tell the visitor to leave any specimens with new determinations and any types found in the general collection on the counter top. Ask the visitor to return all folders to the cases in the correct order. For how to handle the cryptogamic collections, see #3.
10. Equipment use: Demonstrate how the cabinet doors should be securely closed. Show how the compactor cranks and locks are to be used, and emphasize that no more than one bank should be moved at a time. Also show correct door handle position. If s/he will work in the herbarium make sure the microscope they will use is set up correctly. If they will use the herbarium computers, show them how to log in.
11. Lights: Demonstrate the light switches. Ask the visitor to turn off any lights in the herbarium that are no longer needed and to turn them all out at the end of the day if s/he is the last to leave.
12. Type Herbarium: Type specimens are filed under the basionym in the currently accepted family. If the visitor selects types for a loan, emphasize that only the specimens themselves should be removed from the cabinets and place on the countertop. All folders must be returned to the cabinets in the correct order.
Cryptogamic types are filed in the general collection, inside the first red folder for each genus, by basionym.
13. Study rooms: Show the visitor to their office. Show him/her the ID and password to access the NYBG network, point out the microscope, and the cart which can be used to bring specimens back and forth from the herbarium. Ask that, when s/he leaves for the day to: make sure that the microscope is covered and the computer is off.
14. Specimen clean-up: Specimens left by the visitors will be handled by Nicole Tarnowsky and Leanna McMillin for vascular plants, and by Ellen Bloch or Gena Fernandez for cryptogams. From newly annotated specimens, they will update EMu records for barcoded specimens, catalogue any that pertain to VH catalogues, and records dets for staff collections. Vascular specimens that just need to be refiled can be put in cabinets A or B in the vestibule on each floor of the PSC, with a drop tag indicating the family. Cryptogamic specimens can be left on the nearest half high in the herbarium, and Ellen Bloch or Gena Fernandez should be made aware of this. Vascular specimens wanted as a loan will be handled by Amy Weiss. Cryptogamic specimens wanted as a loan will be handled by Ellen Bloch.