Best Practices for the Conservation and Preservation of Herbaria

Abstract

This paper offers an in-depth report on the best practices for the conservation and preservation of herbaria within library and museum collections. A herbarium (singular) is a collection of dried and pressed plant specimens, typically mounted onto paper and accompanied by a certain degree of recorded information. These organic specimens tend to be housed in museums or special collections libraries, where their handling can be carefully monitored and/or restricted. Each herbarium is typically one-of-a-kind and may serve as a vital primary source on human exploration, taxonomy, natural history and even amateur collection practices. A closer look at the best practices for their conservation and preservation spotlights the herbarium as a fragile, valuable and perhaps an unexpected or unusual form of “recorded information” that librarians, archivists and museum professionals may encounter or even have some responsibility over at some point in their careers.