---
title: "Scientific collection"
chunk: 1/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_collection"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:45:29.768232+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

A scientific collection is a collection of items that are preserved, catalogued, and managed for the purpose of scientific study.
Scientific collections dealing specifically with organisms plants, fungi, animals, insects and their remains, may also be called natural history collections or biological collections. The latter may contain either living stocks or preserved repositories of biodiversity specimens and materials.
Scientific collections hold a tangible portion of the cumulative evidence base in such fields as biology (especially taxonomy and evolutionary biology), geology, and archaeology.  They may be stored and managed by governments, educational institutions (e.g. colleges and universities), private organizations (including museums), or individuals.
Prominent uses of scientific collections include the systematic description and identification of biological species, the study and prediction of long-term historical trends (including impacts of climate change), the dating and analysis of historical objects (e.g. via wood samples and ice cores with annual rings), and the maintenance of teaching resources.

== Indexing ==

The indexing of the collections was historically made by directories, catalogs, index cards, today supplemented by or replaced by databases with information such as e.g. scientific description, including picture, name, location, find circumstances, fund age, scientific analysis, phylogenetic relationships, DNA and isotope analysis results, analysis of pollutants, references, condition of the property, owner changes and name changes.
Many organizations support the indexing and handling of their collections by specialist libraries.

== Institutions ==

Research collections hold especially museums, notably natural history museums, botanical gardens, universities and other research institutions. There are also independent research collections, such as the Zoological State Collection Munich with over 20 million stuffed animals for research purposes. Public authorities such as national geological agencies or police units hold partly research collections too.
The Natural History Museum in London - with one of the biggest collections worldwide - is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology.
Largest German Natural History Museum is the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin,  with over 30 million objects, including 9 million beetles and 275,000 jars with preserved in alcohol animals.

== Geology / Earth Sciences collections ==
Remarkable Earth Sciences collections:

In Germany the Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg has particularly rich geological research collections. This includes 80,000 minerals in the Mineralogical Collection, 120,000 samples from deposits in the deposit collection, 16,000 rocks in the petrological collection, 114,000 macro - and almost a million micro-fossils in the fossil collection, 70,000 macro - and microfossils 12,000 and 15,000 lithostratigraphically or facies relevant rock samples and about 14,000 specimens and sections in the Stratigraphic collection, 30,000 pieces of evidence and 30,000 preparations and cuts in Fuel Geological Collection and 34,000 objects in the central body of evidence Lithothek.
The IODP/ODP - Kernlager / Bremen Core Repository (BCR) at the University of Bremen has a collection of 140 km of drill core from the Ocean Drilling Program with 190,000 individual pieces, which are stored in a 1.100m ² large cold storage at 4 °C.
The Musée de Minéralogie a museum of mineralogy operated by the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech) containing some 100,000 samples including 80,000 minerals, 15,000 rocks, 4,000 ores, 400 meteorites, 700 gems, and 300 artificial minerals.
The most important geological collections in Europe include the Museum of the Earth of Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw With more than 170,000 minerals, meteorites, fossil and an amber collection.

== Biological collections / Life Sciences collections ==
Typical collection objects biology are fossils of organisms, preserved samples of extant animals and plants (protected from decay by drying or preparation), but also live plants, animals, bacteria and active viruses.
Plant collections are referred to as herbaria. Live plants are collected in the Botanical gardens, (trees ) in arboretums, aquariums, and partly in seedbanks, as well as e.g. algae from the Culture Collection of Algae Göttingen. Live animals are collected in zoos and aquariums.
The great Old Botanical Garden of the University of Göttingen e.g. represents about a collection of 17,000 species.
Particularly well known in Germany are the major research collections of the Naturmuseum Senckenberg of Senckenberg Society for Nature Research in Frankfurt am Main with over 22 million natural objects (Herbaria 1 Million). Senckenberg offers to open up his collection to the SESAM database.
The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal sounds. It includes more than 175,000 audio recordings covering 75 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ever increasing numbers of insect, fish, frog, and mammal recordings. The video archive includes over 50,000 clips, representing over 3,500 species.
An example for a special collection are the objects of the Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen (German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures).
Remarkable and big Biological collections (more than 1,000,000 specimens) in Europe are