labels and printers the endless quest

[Paulo Petry]

Folks,
        I'd like to add to this discussion two important issues about the labels.
First, there was an extensive discussion about this issue a few years ago,
and several people made tests with laser printed labels. There are many empirical
examples of performance of labels around. If you realy want to get into this,
take a look at gopher://kaw.keil.ukans.edu:70/00/curation/ichs_herps/news10 or
gopher://kaw.keil.ukans.edu:70/77/.indices/asih/curation_info?labels

Second, I contacted the ink chemists at HP some time ago and asked them about the
problem.  They said that our particpation in the printing market is so small that
they could not justify putting time into the issue. The oil from the carcasses seem
to react with the binding agent of the ink, which makes the characters fall of the
paper.

One major issue for large collections is the reliability on the printer labels, and
according to most of the collection managers that I talked to, they still reccomend
using dot matrix printers with Permanent, non-bleeding ink.
I doubt that there a final word to this issue, but caution is recommended with the
laser printed labels, they surely look nice, but I am not sure if they have the
disired attributes that we are looking for.

There is a suplier for non-bleeding ink impact printer ribbons:
                    Automated Office Products, Inc.
                    9700-A Martin Luther King Jr. Hwy.
                    Lanham MD 20706-1837
                    1.800.673.8553 PH. for customer service
                    contact:  Charley Chapman

This is not a commercial for AOP, I am just passing the information along to whom it
may be of interest.

Best Fishes,

Paulo