Auxiliary Collections

[Mary Barkworth]

The Intermountain Herbarium has two major auxiliary collections - one the
library and the other a set of slides.  Curation of both falls on the
herbarium staff BUT a few years ago our univ pres realized that he could
quickly and cheaply increase the university's library holdings by providing
some money for cataloguing the "auxiliary libraries".  Up until that point,
the reaction from the main library was that they would catalog our holdings
if we paid.  We have had more visitors to the herbarium as a result of his
decision - the herbarium's holdings are included in the university libary's
catalog which is available over the Web.  It has not increased our work
load (the biggest problem is still me borrowing books to my office :).  The
slide collection is not catalogued.
We are, obviously, low usage on both collections.  That is the only thing
that makes our informal approach work.  And it does.
Mary Barkworth, Intermountain Herbarium
Department of Biology, Utah State University,
Logan, Utah 84322-5305
Voice: 435-797-1584 FAX: 435-797-1575
Http://www.biology.usu.edu/herbarium/