Date:         Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:13:01 -0500
Reply-To:     Conchologists List <CONCH-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sender:       Conchologists List <CONCH-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Kathryn Goguen <kgoguen@VOYAGER.NET>
Subject:      Safe labels/ID
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

Hello

Mostly I'm just on this list to learn and I don't say much, but during this
past winter, with time on my hands and no garden work, I decided to enjoy my
shells by doing digital photographs of them.  I grouped 5-8 shells together
on a photo so comparative sizes are obvious.  I had the idea from the book
Collector's Gde to Seashells of the World, by J. Eisenberg.  I especially
like that book because you have a sense of relative size that few other
books give you.

I used Adobe Photoshop to type names and numbers on the photographs, and
then printed them and put them in an album with a little description.

The shells were grouped by family of course.  My regular storage is in
plastic bags with the label and number with the shell, in drawers in the
closet.  I feel badly because I have a nice collection of about 750 specimen
shells and can't really enjoy them much since they are put safely away.  I
do display some of the large shells.

With the album, if labels get separated from shells it is easy to identify
the stray shell.  It was fun project for about 3 weeks.

 I also have the collection on a data base.  I just used Microsoft Works,
starting with a blank data base, and assigned categories: species, genus,
family, size, source, location, etc etc - each time I get a shell I add it
to the database.  You can sort by each category and print out copies of the
list. Computers are wonderful things.

Kay


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