Ray Moves into His New Library & Rock Museum

August 21, 2007
by Ray Hill

I recently moved my office into my newly constructed office, library, and rock museum, situated on our property. Actually, it has been a three month process of getting all the book display cases made and installed and displays for my personal rock collection. We spent about a month putting all the books in library sections by type. This was quite a process. I thought setting up a personal library would be easy. Boy was I wrong!

So far I have about 20% of the books entered into a cataloging program. This has taken me many hours of work over a 30 day period. My goal is to have all the books cataloged and labeled within six months.

In setting up my new office/library/museum I was able to come up with what I think are some nice displays for part of my rock collection. Here, I will share some of my ideas with you, just in case you would like to do something like this.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Here is a photo of a pedestal type column where I display 40 Riker Mount display cases of Indian arrowheads. The whole thing only takes up a very small amount of floor space. Everyone that comes into the library loves this display.

And here's a photo of another pedestal type column with eight shelves that go all the way around. I can display 32 larger specimens on this column. It is a neat idea for showing off some of the larger specimens.

And here are a couple of shots of an agate slice display frame that I made for one of the windows in the library. One photo was taken from inside the library and the other from outside. When you stand inside and look out the window the agate slices are really beautiful.

And here is a shot of how I made the specimen description stands for the larger specimens on the pedestal/column. Actually, I thought of this idea some years ago. I recently made 50 of these for the library & museum. There is a thin piece of Plexiglas® on the front of the card holder, attached with two half-inch brass screws.

You are welcome to use these ideas for displaying some of your own rock collection. If you need information on how I built these displays let me know. I'd be happy to help you.

Ray Hill
Great South Gems & Minerals, Inc.
www.greatsouth.net
888-933-GEMS

Note: Only rock clubs have permission to print this article but must give credit to the author, Ray Hill, and Great South Gems & Minerals, Inc. For everyone else, please email us for permission.

Great South Gems & Minerals, Inc. www.greatsouth.net 38 Bond Drive Ellenwood, Georgia 30294 USA 1-888-933-GEMS (4367) FAX 770-474-4507