Storage for herbarium collection

Wellesley's Archives are planning to acquire a small collection of
botanical specimens, and we are attempting to determine the best way
to store them.  Although this is somewhat outside of my area of
expertise, my understanding is that airflow is an important part of
storing herbaria, and there are cabinets designed for their storage
that take this into account.  However, it seems cost-prohibitive to
purchase a special herbarium cabinet just for the one small
collection (the entire stack of pages and folders measures roughly
16 5/8 inches x 11 7/8 inches x 3 1/4 inches or about 42 cm x 30 cm
x 8 cm).

Would it be sufficient to store the pages in a couple of archival
boxes, possibly with some spacing material between pages to
encourage air circulation?  Or does anyone have any other
suggestions for caring for this kind of material?  Perhaps I'm being
overly concerned, as the specimens are quite old (there are about
100 specimens in the group, all from around 1899) and are likely to
be as dry as they are going to get.  I would be happy for someone to
point me in the direction of some reference material on the subject
or for someone who is familiar with this kind of material to offer
their advice on care and storage.

Emily K. Bell
Collections Conservator
Margaret Clapp Library
Wellesley College
106 Central Street
Wellesley MA 02481-8203
Conservation Facility: 781-283-3595
Office: 781-283-3866


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 29:22
                 Distributed: Sunday, October 18, 2015
                       Message Id: cdl-29-22-016
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