Policy and Loans

Loans and Policy

The ALA Herbarium encourages collaboration and exchange between herbaria as well as individuals that are interested in arctic and panarctic flora. Below are links that provide detailed information pertaining to loans as well as visiting researchers.

Loan Policy -

Loan PDF Size: »99.2K» bytes Modified: 29 April 2014, 13:14

Visitor Policy

It is our policy to admit all legitimate visitors: faculty, staff, and students from universities, colleges, and museums from any state or country; staff of state and federal agencies; qualified amateurs. Representatives of not-for-profit organizations and private industry may be assessed user charges at the discretion of the Curator(s) and with the approval of the Director of the Museum. It is recommended that visitors notify us in advance of the dates and hours they expect to be here. Especially in summer, the Herbarium may be closed periodically as the staff may be involved in fieldwork or other travel. Unannounced visitors are welcome, but take their chances on finding the Herbarium open. Visitors are requested to sign the Visitor Register.

All incoming plant material must be fumigated (which means being frozen at -40\xb0C for 48 hours) before being brought into the Herbarium. Therefore visitors wishing to compare and identify their specimens using our resources must first submit their specimens for freezing a minimum of two working days in advance.

No specimens, books, or reprints can be removed from the Herbarium without the approval of the Curator. Visitors wishing to borrow specimens from our collection are encouraged to withdraw the specimens they are interested in. These, however, must be put aside until the Curator returns and the loan can be authorized.

Volunteer Opportunities

We can always use help in processing herbarium specimens. The main bottleneck in processing is gluing the dried specimens to herbarium sheets. We have several thousand specimens that are identified, labeled, and ready to mount. Volunteers who work long enough to become familiar with our system can also help by filing processed specimens and entering data to the database.

For more information email or call Jordan Metzgar at 907-474-7109. For general information about volunteering in the Museum see the Museum Volunteer page.