Fortress of Solitude

A lifetime member of the museum recently donated his mineral collection. Stephanie McDorman, our collections manager, wrote the following about these new items:

Sometimes I’m the only person here in the collections room, and when I’m working with crystals like this, I can’t help but think of Superman’s “Fortress of Solitude,” kryptonite, and other inventions of a fantasy world that actually cannot compete with the beauty of God’s real creation.

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You may see some of the new specimens on exhibit someday, either at the Creation Museum or Ark Encounter, but for now, we will catalog them here in the collections room. We record the details of the donor and the donation, which is called an “accession” and is given an “accession number.” Then we enter each of the objects selected for the permanent collection into the database, and each item is assigned an item number. We apply the accession number and the item number to each mineral in permanent ink using special pens, photograph it for the database, store it, and enter its storage location in the database as well.

When we need them in the future, we will have all of their details readily accessible in the database using the accession and item numbers.

We are currently processing these minerals, over 100 Alabama fossils, thousands of Mazon Creek fossils, and a huge shell collection. Some collections take a very long time because they need to be identified, and we must consult with our experts on them. Others are well documented but take a long time because of the sheer volume of objects (like the shell collection).

Faithful volunteers provide marvelous assistance with projects like these. Would you like to volunteer some of your time to work with Stephanie in the collections room?