Many of Cornell's natural history collections -- some of the foremost of their kind -- are scattered across campus and around the Ithaca area, often housed in warehouse-like conditions where access for scholars and the public is both difficult and uninviting. That will change next year for two categories of collected materials. The university's fossil collections will move into the Paleontologial Research Institution's soon-to-opened Museum of the Earth. And the vertebrate collections will find a more accessible home in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's new Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity. This is the second of two articles on these significant moves.
The construction of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods is well under way, making the old observatory look like a birdhouse in the backyard. The 80,000-square-foot facility will provide enough space for almost all Cornell ornithology personnel and workspace to be under one roof for the first time. Among the attractions will be Cornell's vertebrate collections, an assortment of over 1 million birds, mammals, fish, amphibians and reptiles.
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| Kim Bostwick, curator and research associate for birds and mammals in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, sits in a warehouse on Brown Road among cabinets holding the university's vertebrate collection, Sept. 23. Robert Barker/University Photography |
"Cornell has a long record of serious involvement in organismic biology," explained John Fitzpatrick, the L.A. Fuertes Director of the Lab of Ornithology, "so the collection has steadily accumulated specimens from the 1800s to the present."
In a collection this complete, the specimens come in all shapes, sizes and modes of preservation. There are birds that have been stuffed and mounted, rodents that are mummified in drawers, schools of fish suspended in ethanol and skeletons posing on stands. Some represent species that are abundant; others give testimony to species that are extinct.
"The collection is currently sitting in a World War II-vintage cinderblock building that's falling apart over by the airport," said Fitzpatrick. Indeed, the dilapidated building shows no evidence of housing one of the 20 largest university collections of vertebrates in the nation, and one of the top 10 based on variety of specimens.
If the building itself is decayed, then its contents can be downright alarming. Collections manager Charles Dardia recalls the time an electrician was asked to change the light bulbs in the herpetology section -- and flatly refused when he saw what was "pickled" in jars. "We have everything from rattlesnakes to boa constrictors in there, but he didn't care that they were dead. He wouldn't go near them," recalled Dardia.
Although the vertebrate collection might look like a witch's pantry to the untrained eye, it is a highly organized pantry. Almost all of the collection is computer-cataloged, said Fitzpatrick. "It is used extensively by Cornell students and faculty for research projects. The fact that it is computerized makes it possible for people all over the world to browse the collection online. The Cornell University collection is important enough and large enough that it is part of a globally networked scientific research community."
The Lab of Ornithology's new I.P. Johnson Center has been designed to accommodate the entire vertebrate collection so that hands-on access will be greatly improved. However, Associate Director Scott Sutcliffe emphasizes that "the building will be primarily scientific in nature, not a natural history museum."
A few representative bird samples will be on display for the public, but the rest of collection will be housed on the first floor in state-of-the-art preservation conditions, not on exhibit. "We're here for a blink in time, but that stuff is supposed to be here for thousands of years after us, so it needs special care," said Sutcliffe.
To complement the collection, the scientific space also will include DNA sequencing labs, teaching labs, classrooms and walk-in freezers, among other facilities. It will be a big step up from the current collections lab, which looks like a glorified kitchen. "The lab is already a leading place for the collection of natural sounds and video," said Kim Bostwick, curator and research associate for birds and mammals. "With the addition of the collection and the tissue lab, we will undoubtedly be one of the most integrated collections ever."
"I think that's going to put Cornell -- as far as collections are concerned -- on the map," said Fitzpatrick. "The collection itself is great, but right now it's off-campus, it's inaccessible, it has no lab space or student space associated with it, and all of that will be in the new building. I think it will bring new meaning to the university collections."
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