The Florida State Museum has recently acquired two important collections of Recent mollusks: the Thomas McGinty Collection and the Beal-Maltbie Collection. Both contain numerous sets of specimens that are rare or come from environmentally disturbed areas which are threatened with further biological deterioration. The collections have strong representation of specimens from the United States and many tropical regions around the world and encompass all habitats from marine to freshwater to land. In addition, they contain many type specimens that have been unavailable to science for the last forty years. This project will fund the curation of the two new collections and their incorporation into the mollusk collection of the Museum, thus making the specimens available to researchers, students and other interested persons. Contemporary curatorial standards will be followed, and data about the specimens will be entered into the museum's electronic cataloguing system. The newly acquired specimens are an important addition to the research and educational resources of the United States.
