• Comparison of non-invasive sampling devices for VOCs emitted by historical snuffboxes. • Coupling of GC-MS with olfactory detection to combine chemical and olfactory data. • Comparison of olfactory data obtained with sorbent tubes filled with Tenax TA® and HiSorb probes. In the recent years, several sampling devices have been used for the non-destructive collection of volatile organic compounds in heritage environments. To heritage scientists and conservators, these have become essential tools, as they enable the investigation of material composition, degradation processes, and conservation treatments, in principle without damaging the artefact. This paper investigates the performance of sorbent tubes, common sampling devices used in museums, and HiSorb probes, to analyze the volatiles emitted from two historical snuffboxes. The first one, an empty one from the National Museum of Slovenia, has undergone conservation, while the second one is an untreated historical object from the Historical Reference Material Collection of the Heritage Science Laboratory Ljubljana, still containing tobacco. Comparison of the different sampling devices showed that both sorbent tubes and HiSorb probes gave comprehensive chromatograms, detecting products related to wood degradation, such as acetic acid, formic acid, furfural, nonanal, and decanal. Furthermore, HiSorb probes detected terpenes and tobacco-derived compounds, like nicotine, and pyridine-derivatives. Noticeably, these compounds were characterized as traces in the cleaned snuffbox, while they showed high peaks in the reference one, consistently with their conservation history. The small size of the HiSorb probe, which allowed its insertion into the snuffbox, likely contributed to the higher abundance of the detected volatiles. Gas chromatography was coupled with two detectors – mass spectrometry and olfactometry – to define the olfactory profile of the two case studies and correlate each compound with the detected smell. Two sampling devices were compared: sorbent tubes and HiSorb probes. In contrast with commonly used sorbent tubes, this study represents the first application of HiSorb sampling in combination with olfactometric analysis for heritage objects, introducing a novel methodological approach. The results demonstrated that olfactory analysis following HiSorb sampling is feasible, with a number of the most intense smells comparable, or even higher, than when sampling with sorbent tubes. The outcomes confirmed the chemical analyses, highlighting “wood”, “leather”, “flower”, and “fresh” as main descriptors, with the snuffbox belonging to the reference collection presenting a richer profile including more compounds giving “wood”, “sweet”, and “powder” notes.

The Levant region is an important recognized biological corridor that unites three major continents, Africa, Asia and Europe. Due to its intersectional positioning, the region has facilitated flora and faunal exchange between four biogeographical elements: Palaearctic, Palaeoeremic, Ethiopian and Oriental. The Levant's unique geological position, along with a distinguishable climate gradient and topographic heterogeneity, has likely contributed to the impressive solifuge biodiversity in a comparatively small area, making it an ideal and important gateway for beginning to interrogate the current solifuge diversity in the Old World. In this region, there are currently six families of solifuges and over 50 species described. However, solifuge taxonomy in the Old World has remained largely stagnant. While there exists a consensus that accurate taxonomic estimates are imperative for conservation efforts, such information is often in reference to undiscovered diversity, rather than the possible taxonomic inflation that may exist in understudied groups such as solifuges. The purpose of this study was to revisit the current standing taxonomic hypotheses using UCE phylogenomics, divergence dating, and analysis of SNPs recovered from solifuge genomes, using both newly generated genomic data derived from natural history collections and previously acquired genomic data. Our primary goal was to reevaluate the solifuge historical taxonomy of this region, with the intent of obtaining a better picture of shallow-level diversity patterns in the six native solifuge families of interest. Our molecular study provides evidence to suggest that the current reported solifuge diversity from this region should be synonymized to about one-third, as they represent junior synonyms of conspecifics. Our findings highlight longstanding taxonomic inaccuracies within Levantine Solifugae and illuminate the extent of unwarranted and excessive taxonomic splitting. Future taxonomic research should prioritize clarifying species boundaries and reorganizing the group based on a comprehensive understanding of what defines a meaningfully stable taxonomic unit, while remaining open to simplified scenarios with fewer taxonomic ranks.

Historical fungaria serve as critical repositories for documenting fungal diversity and establishing historical baselines, particularly in biodiversity hotspots. This study presents a systematic revision of the mycological collection of Odoardo Beccari, gathered during expeditions to Southeast Asia and Oceania (1865–1878). While part of this collection was examined by Vincenzo Cesati in 1879, a substantial portion remained unstudied at the Natural History Museum, University of Florence, for over 150 years. We conducted a morphological examination (macro- and microscopy) and catalogued 153 fungal specimens. Taxonomic identities were assigned following current nomenclatural standards and cross-referenced with modern databases, including the Checklist of Fungi of Malaysia and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Of these, 84 specimens were identified to species level and 36 to genus level. The collection also includes four specimens corresponding to material used for the original description of species (type material). Nearly 50% of the taxa collected exclusively in Borneo are absent from modern regional checklists, highlighting significant gaps in current knowledge of mycobiota. GBIF data confirm Beccari as the earliest documented collector of fungal specimens in the rainforests of Sarawak. By documenting taxa not recollected in over a century, this study establishes a crucial historical baseline for fungal diversity in Borneo and provides valuable historical data for Sumatra. All specimen data are now publicly available through GBIF.

Natural history collections contain millions of microscope slides documenting global microscopic biodiversity, yet these materials remain largely undigitized and are vulnerable to deterioration and loss. Recent advances in slide scanner technology, originally developed for medical pathology, offer new opportunities for comprehensive digitization of slide-based collections. Here we present an optimized protocol for digitizing diverse microscope slide specimens, using the Hamamatsu NanoZoomer S20 slide scanner, developed while imaging slides at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. We provide specimen-specific recommendations for scanning parameters, including scan area, focal points, Z-stack configuration, and file management workflows. Scanning times range from 41 seconds for small invertebrates to 18 minutes for palynological samples, with final compressed file sizes of 0.15-28 GB. High-resolution images (0.23 μm/pixel) captured diagnostic morphological features across all specimen types, including pollen, diatoms, radiolarians, plant and fungi tissues, and invertebrates. Using this method, we estimated that just the NMNH's paleo-palynology slide collection contains approximately 4.3 billion individual specimens, 30 times more than the current estimated size of the entire NMNH collection. Slide scanning enables 3D data capture, facilitates remote collaboration, improves reproducibility of taxonomic identifications, and creates permanent digital records that mitigate risks of physical deterioration. This protocol provides practical guidance for institutions looking to digitize slide-based collections to preserve and unlock their full research potential.

Objectives . To compare the body composition of sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic femals. To evaluate the role of bioimpedance analysis and phase angle determination in the diagnosis of sarcopenia. Material and methods . The cross-sectional study included 90 women aged 61 to 83 years. Group 1 enrolled 56 women without sarcopenia, group 2 consisted of 34 sarcopenic persons. Standardized collection of complaints and medical history, anthropometry, dynamometry, Short Physical Performance Battery, including the Chair rising test, tandem, Timed-Up-and-Go, walking speed, bioimpedance analysis of body composition. Results. Waist circumference, the age is higher in group 2, p < 0.050. Body composition did not differ in both groups, p > 0.050. A potentially high level of physical performance was detected only in group 1, a low level of nutritional status only in group 2, p = 0.011, χ 2 = 10.965. A moderate feedback relationship was found between fat mass, fat-free, active cell masses, total and extracellular fluid, and basal metabolism with the relative strength of both hands. There is little correlation between the results of other functional tests and body composition. Conclusions. Age is an unmodified factor in the development of sarcopenia. The presence of abdominal type of obesity increases the risk of sarcopenia. The determination of muscle strength by the dynamometry method has a pronounced diagnostic significance. Determination of the phase angle using bioimpedance analysis plays an important role in confirming the diagnosis of sarcopenia. A low level of phase angle is an important marker and predictor of the severity of sarcopenia.

Abstract. Pteroglossa macrantha (Orchidaceae: Spiranthinae) was previously known in Argentina only from a historical collection made by Ekman in 1908 in the province of Misiones, with no subsequent records confirming its presence in the country. During recent botanical surveys in the province of Corrientes, a new population was discovered, representing the first modern record for Argentina after more than a century and one of the southernmost confirmed occurrences of the species in the country. Detailed morphological observations confirmed its identity and revealed slight variations in leaf proportions compared with specimens from Brazil and Paraguay. The plants of this species grow in seasonally flooded alluvial grasslands on sandy substrates near the Paraná River. The regional conservation assessment, based on IUCN criteria, indicates that P. macrantha should be considered Critically Endangered (CR) in Argentina due to its extremely small area of occupancy, its occurrence in a single locality, and ongoing habitat degradation. This finding highlights the importance of the riparian grasslands of Corrientes as biodiversity refuges and priority areas for the conservation of rare and threatened orchids of the Southern Cone.

Natural history collections contain vast numbers of small, fragile specimens whose morphology is difficult to capture using conventional 2D-imaging. Photogrammetric 3D-reconstruction from multi-view photographs can preserve surface colour and enable scaled measurement, but at macro magnification it typically requires dense viewpoint coverage with high overlap and extended depth-of-field (EDOF) imagery. Existing robotic systems often achieve viewpoint variation by rotating and tilting the specimen, which can be limiting for elongated, heavy, or fragile mounts and for objects whose geometry may change when reoriented. We present the Orbitoscope, an open-source six-axis macro-imaging robot that keeps the specimen stationary while moving the camera in translation (X-Y-Z) and orientation (A-B) around it, with a dedicated stacking axis (C) to acquire focus stacks automatically. We demonstrate the workflow by digitizing six insect specimens and generating scaled, textured 3D models suitable for preservation, measurement, and online dissemination. Basic measurement validation on one specimen showed a mean absolute percent error of 0.52% (max. 0.88%) relative to calibrated microscope reference measurements. Hardware, software, and documentation are openly released, with detailed build and operation instructions archived separately as a technical package.

Museum is one of the learning resources that can be utilized in history learning. However, in practice, history learning in schools is still often conventional and less engaging for students. Therefore, the use of museums as learning resources becomes an effective alternative to improve students’ understanding of historical materials.This article aims to examine the role of museums as learning resources in history learning. The method used is a literature study by reviewing relevant sources. The results show that museums have an important role in providing more concrete learning experiences through their collections of historical objects. One example is North Sumatra State Museum which presents various historical and cultural collections that support learning activities.The use of museums in history learning can increase students’ interest, deepen their understanding, and foster historical awareness. Thus, museums can be used as effective and innovative learning media in supporting the educational process

Using historic fungarium collections to assess macrofungal community shifts in insect-damaged eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) forests

Severe bone fragility in infancy poses a major diagnostic challenge in forensic pathology, particularly in distinguishing congenital disorders from metabolic disease or non-accidental injury. This study presents a retrospective forensic-pathological reassessment of an infant individual who died in 1920 and was historically diagnosed with idiopathic osteopsathyrosis (Vrolik disease), now recognized as osteogenesis imperfecta. The reassessment is based on archival clinical records, the original autopsy report, contemporaneous radiographic documentation, and non-destructive examination of the preserved individual housed at the Morgagni Museum of Human Anatomy (Padua, Italy). The study applies modern forensic and paleopathological criteria to reinterpret the distribution and characteristics of skeletal lesions, while accounting for ethical and conservation constraints that preclude destructive analyses. The individual exhibited extreme skeletal fragility with multiple spontaneous fractures affecting long and flat bones, absence of reparative callus formation, and generalized osteoporotic changes. Radiographic and autopsy descriptions are consistent with a severe congenital bone fragility disorder. Differential diagnosis excludes rickets and non-accidental injury. Archival data also suggest maternal tuberculosis during pregnancy, discussed as a possible comorbid condition rather than a causal factor. This case highlights the forensic relevance of historical pathological collections in providing reference material for rare congenital disorders. A retrospective reassessment using modern diagnostic frameworks can contribute to differential diagnosis in infant deaths and underscores the importance of recognizing osteogenesis imperfecta in medico-legal contexts.

Trait variation is essential for population-level responses to novel selective pressures. Because beak morphology is a trait crucial for tasks directly influencing fitness, such as resource acquisition, we hypothesize that species with greater intraspecific variation in beak morphology may access a broader range of food resources, promoting an expanded dietary niche and potentially reducing extinction risk. Hawaiian honeycreepers, once comprising about 60 species, have suffered a high rate of extinction, with less than 35% of species persisting today. We quantified beak morphological variation of extinct and extant Hawaiian honeycreepers collected between 1880 and 1913 and estimated species' niche breadth from stable isotope ratios. While a direct link between morphology and diet variation was not evident at the community level, our analysis revealed that, within guilds, species with lower morphological variation also exhibited narrower isotopic niches. Moreover, extinct species had less morphological variation than those extant, suggesting a link between adaptive potential and extinction vulnerability. Our study highlights the value of historical datasets and museum collections, not only for understanding past ecological patterns but also for providing critical baselines to compare with extant species, allowing us to better interpret present-day biodiversity and extinction risk through the lens of the past.

Many osteological methods used by biological anthropologists today were initially developed using historical anatomical skeletal collections such as the Hamann-Todd and Terry Collections. However, these collections were amassed through state legislation that permitted the dissection and curation of unclaimed individuals. These laws targeted low socioeconomic and marginalized communities that were less likely to be able to afford burial or claim relatives. Until recently, very few scholars have acknowledged the lived experiences of individuals who make up such collections. As such, there are ongoing conversations about the ethics of continued research with these collections. Part of evaluating this ethical dilemma is understanding exactly how these collections are being used for research, to evaluate to what extent these collections are used for methodological studies that neglect to consider the identities of the people in their samples. In this study, we categorized and analyzed research aims for 100 academic journal articles and 185 conference abstracts that used or significantly discussed the Terry, Hamann-Todd, Cobb, or Huntington Collections. Results show that most studies conducted using these collections have historically entertained questions of methodological significance, but there is a recent shift toward studies that focus on the lived experiences of individuals that compose historical anatomical skeletal collections. This analysis demonstrates that the discipline is responding to recent debates about the ethics of historical skeletal collections and is moving toward establishing better recognition of the individuals that constitute some of the most influential collections in biological anthropology.

Bones in focus: A fresh look at human skeletal material from the northern Netherlands. This article reviews the collection history and current inventory of human skeletal collections from the northern Netherlands curated at the Noordelijk Archeologisch Depot (NAD). These skeletal remains were collected from the 19th century onwards. Until recently, systematic physical anthropological study of these materials has remained limited. Large excavations at such sites as Aduard, Dokkum, and Emmen yielded substantial amounts of material, but documentation is often incomplete. Since 2021, the renewal of training in physical anthropology at the University of Groningen has enabled students to re-describe and register more than 5000 inventory numbers, covering 233 sites. Twenty sites with more than 10 intact burials are highlighted as promising for future population-level research. The improved registration, including standardized skeletal descriptions and visual forms, has made the NAD collection more accessible as open data. These efforts provide a foundation for comparative studies on health, demography, and burial practices in the northern Netherlands across different historical periods.

Background: Natural history collections are foundational infrastructure for biodiversity science, but the global geography of specimen custody — where specimens are housed relative to where they were collected — has rarely been quantified through time. Understanding these patterns is essential for assessing equitable access, providing information for capacity-building efforts and ensuring that countries of origin benefit from biodiversity research.Objectives: We provide the first time-resolved, country-to-country analysis of specimen flow networks for vertebrates, using three globally distributed mammalian families (Canidae, Felidae, Mustelidae) as case studies. We ask: (1) How have regional shares of specimen holdings changed over time? (2) Have holdings become more evenly distributed across countries? (3) How have origin→holding flows shifted with respect to regional retention and reciprocity? (4) Do the three families exhibit distinct curation profiles?Methods: We analysed 253,131 preserved-specimen records from GBIF spanning 1900–2020, aggregated into four approximately equal temporal periods (1900-1929, 1930-1959, 1960-1989, 1990-2020). We constructed directed, weighted country-to-country flow networks for each family × time period combination and computed network metrics (size, complexity, density, reciprocity, connectivity) and inequality metrics (Gini coefficient). We visualised geographic patterns using network maps on Robinson projections and assessed temporal trends using statistical models.Results: Specimen holdings are highly concentrated: the United States holds 55% of all specimens and the top 10 countries account for 90%. Inequality follows a U-shaped trajectory: high concentration in early periods (Gini 0.85–0.89 in 1900-1929), democratisation by the 1960-1989 period (Gini 0.77–0.89), then re-concentration in 1990-2020 (Gini 0.81–0.86). Specimen flow networks underwent simplification, contracting from 100–111 participating countries and 207–262 flows in the 1930-1959 period to only 75–84 countries and 115–160 flows in 1990-2020 — a 23–29% reduction in network size and 39–56% reduction in complexity. Despite simplification, networks remain dense and cohesive amongst remaining participants. However, reciprocity (bidirectional exchange) is low (mean 0.075 or 7.5% in recent periods), indicating predominantly unidirectional flows from biodiversity-rich regions to museum-rich nations. These patterns are broadly consistent across Canidae, Felidae and Mustelidae, though Felidae exhibits less inequality rebound, possibly reflecting conservation-driven capacity building.Conclusions: Our findings reveal persistent geographic imbalances in specimen custody, characterised by concentration in wealthy nations, low reciprocity and network contraction over time. While some patterns may reflect digitisation lags, genuine reductions in the breadth of global collecting and shifts towards extractive (non-reciprocal) flow structures are evident. These imbalances create structural inequities in research access, taxonomic expertise and capacity for biodiversity science in countries of origin. Addressing these challenges requires systemic interventions: capacity building in under-represented countries, collaborative frameworks that ensure reciprocity and benefit-sharing, improved digital access, policy reforms to streamline permits without compromising sovereignty and sustained funding for museum science and taxonomy. This study provides a quantitative baseline for monitoring progress towards more equitable specimen curation and offers a reproducible framework applicable to other taxa and regions.

Purpose: This tutorial supports speech-language pathologists in assessing speech sound disorders (SSDs) in Saudi Arabic–speaking children—a population underserved by standardized clinical tools and psychometrically validated resources. Particular attention is given to dialectal variation, diglossia, and cultural considerations influencing assessment outcomes. Method: Drawing on empirical findings, researcher-developed tools, and region-specific phonological profiles, this tutorial provides step-by-step guidance for assessing SSDs in children who speak Saudi dialects of Arabic. The tutorial outlines procedures for culturally sensitive case history collection, phonetic and phonemic analysis, intelligibility screening, stimulability, speech perception, and participation measures. Strategies include the use of single-word and connected speech samples and the application of both relational and independent analyses. Additionally, examples from emerging research in Najdi and Hijazi dialects are integrated, and limitations of currently available Arabic-language tools are critically examined. Results: The tutorial offers a comprehensive framework that differentiates dialectal features from disordered speech, guiding clinicians in selecting and interpreting assessment data. It emphasizes the use of flexible, informal tools and proposes adaptations such as dynamic assessment, narrow transcription, and whole-word proximity measures to enhance diagnostic accuracy in the absence of standardized tests. Conclusion: This work contributes to more equitable and culturally informed SSD assessment practices for Arabic-speaking children and provides a foundation for developing clinically appropriate resources tailored to Saudi Arabic dialects. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.31449526

Climate change is driving the loss of genetic diversity, potentially limiting species' capacity to adapt to environmental change. Detecting changes in genetic diversity requires replicated temporal data, which is lacking for most species. Here, we combined contemporary and historical specimens of the climate-vulnerable fucoid Scytothalia dorycarpa to assess genetic diversity across ~2700 km of its geographic range. We analyzed four conserved organellar markers (rbcL, CO1, cox3, and trnW-1) using newly collected specimens and herbarium material to reconstruct past diversity. Scytothalia dorycarpa is endemic to Australia and has experienced climate-mediated declines over recent decades. We found stability in haplotype diversity over the 16-year sampling period, as well as across additional historical herbarium collections (1800s, 1883, 1960). We identified several common contemporary and historical haplotypes across the sampled range, but diversity patterns varied between markers. Nonetheless, consistent trends emerged for certain populations, with high, unique haplotype diversity consistently present across all markers and timepoints in the Cape Naturaliste-Leeuwin region (Western Australia). Notably, both contemporary and historical (now extinct) warm-edge populations had unique haplotypes that were absent elsewhere in the sampled range. These results demonstrate strong temporal stability in S. dorycarpa genetic diversity, with limited haplotype turnover, highlighting the resilience of sampled populations. The presence of unique haplotypes in specific populations underscores their role as reservoirs of evolutionary potential. By documenting long-term stability alongside localized diversity losses, this study provides a critical baseline for understanding the processes shaping genetic variation in S. dorycarpa and predicting its responses to future climate change.

The digitization and online availability of herbarium specimens have increased the need for automated tools to extract specimen traits at scale. Quantitative trait data, such as leaf area or petal length, are critical for ecology, evolution, and climate change research. In recent years, automated methods such as LeafMachine2 (Weaver and Smith 2023) and Mothra (Wilson et al. 2022) have been developed to measure these traits from images, supporting large-scale studies. However, such image measurements need to be converted from pixels to standardized units (e.g., centimeters) to be useful. Existing methods estimate this conversion factor (CF) by detecting the ruler type and the tick mark locations directly. From these image coordinates, the average pixel distance between them can be calculated to estimate the CF. These methods typically require many annotated samples for each ruler type and tend to perform poorly when applied to unseen or visually distinct rulers. To overcome these limitations, we present a generic pipeline that accurately predicts the CF with few labeled rulers. The approach leverages the fact that many institutions reuse identical rulers, often differing only in institutional logos. Instead of directly classifying or predicting the tick mark locations, the pipeline uses a similarity-based approach. First, rulers on the page are detected using a YOLOv11 object detection model. Second, these rulers are cropped and normalized, ensuring the longest side is horizontal. After detection, we use Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP) to embed each ruler and to retrieve the three most similar ruler candidates from our ground-truth dataset. Next, we use the LightGlue keypoint-matching model to detect corresponding keypoints between the query ruler and each retrieved candidate. This model detects and scores similar keypoint pairs (pixel coordinates) between two input image pairs. The candidate ruler with the highest average score across the 100 best keypoint pairs is selected as the best match. If none of the candidates had at least 10 matching keypoint pairs, we consider the query ruler a “no-match”. Finally, these keypoint pairs are used to estimate a homography, which describes how one image can be transformed to align with another taken from a different viewpoint. This transformation is then applied to the ground truth tick mark locations to calculate the CF for the query ruler. To evaluate the proposed method, we constructed a new dataset by randomly selecting 400 herbarium sheets from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), PlantCLEF2020, and Dillen et al. 2019 . Each ruler was annotated with its bounding polygon and a type. Ruler tick marks were annotated with their coordinate locations and units (e.g., ticks_1cm). The dataset contains a diverse set of 476 rulers from over 40 institutions. We estimated our measurement error at 0.794%, which is in line with the reported 0.8% from LeafMachine2, by calculating the average standard deviation of pixel distances between each tick mark. We evaluated our approach using a leave-one-out cross-validation, treating each ruler crop as a query and the remaining dataset as candidate matches. We also evaluated our method on the 1131 rulers from LeafMachine2 , which were annotated with a bounding box around the tick marks (see Fig. 1). Rulers without a matching type were excluded for evaluation. The method achieved an average CF error of 0.689% using the best-matching ruler. 94.8% of rulers had a CF error less than 2%. On the LeafMachine2 dataset, performance improved with an average CF error of 0.324%. There, 99.0% of rulers had a CF error less than 2%. We plan to investigate how different annotation strategies affect performance. Table 1 details these evaluation results. The proposed method offers several advantages over existing approaches. First, it allows an accurate conversion with fewer annotated rulers of the same type, essentially needing only one. Second, the keypoint matching process is robust to partial detections, occlusions, and low-resolution rulers, as visualized in Fig. 2. Third, only the detection model needs minimal fine-tuning when new ruler types are added to the dataset, as the matching models remain unchanged. Additionally, the prediction can still be accurate when the best-matching ruler is from a different institution (see Fig. 3). The main limitation of our method is that it requires at least one annotated ruler of a similar type to result in a good match. It also assumes the tick marks are on a straight line, resulting in poorer performance for curved rulers. Finally, we found that simple rulers, such as straight lines, tend to perform worse (see Fig. 3). This work represents part of our ongoing research to assist trait extraction at scale. We plan to expand the dataset with additional ruler types, including examples from other natural history collections. We will further refine the method to improve its robustness and generalization across institutions and to explore fallback methods when no match is found. The code and dataset are available on GitHub*1.

Purpose Stewardship at cultural heritage institutions anchors public trust, yet archivists’ perspectives behind the scenes are little known. This paper explores archivists’ vantage points on stewardship and user orientation as a social good at six history of medicine collections in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative methods and naturalistic inquiry adhered to the interpretivist paradigm and relied on inductive reasoning and constructivist grounded theory. A theoretical framework fitted with concepts from information practice, information work and communities of practice research guided empirical data analysis and interpretation. Research design was emergent. Data collection bracketed six months before and after COVID-19 pandemic onset in March 2020. Findings Through an information practice lens, participants aligned stewardship with information practices embedded at the physical sites. Work contexts included institutional sites, biography and work roles, workplace documents and work task performance. Participants’ autonomy enabled streamlining internal stewardship tasks and reference services, bypassing user studies. During the pandemic, participants’ hybrid stewardship raised the import and visibility of user orientation in stewardship as a social good. However, participants’ work was constrained by users’ indirect access to repository webpages on institutional website gateways. Originality/value The paper is among the first to bridge information practice research and cultural heritage stewardship. Foregrounding archivists’ agency contributes to theory development in information behavior research in library and information science (LIS).

Obtaining the most accurate admission medication history is paramount to ensure patient safety with medication reconciliation across the continuum of care during hospitalization. The purpose of this performance improvement initiative was to assess the accuracy of pharmacy technician home medication history collection at a large community medical center following clinical competency education. A retrospective review was conducted using a sample of adult patients who presented to the emergency department (ED) over an 8-month period. Data analysis was grouped into 2 phases. Phase I data represented the 4 months before implementation of clinical competency education (May 2023 through August 2023). Phase II data represented the 4 months after competency program implementation (September2023 through December 2023). Data points collected were patient age and gender, discrepancy type, total number of discrepancies, total number of discrepancies in high-risk medication categories, information sources utilized by the pharmacy technician, and total number of home medications. ED pharmacy technician home medication history collection accuracy increased from 53% to 79%. The increase in home medication history collection accuracy resulted in a decrease in discrepancies. Implementation of medication history clinical competency education for pharmacy technicians resulted in fewer discrepancies and improved accuracy prior to pharmacist review. The results of this study may help other institutions improve home medication history collection accuracy by implementing targeted education to increase pharmacy technician clinical knowledge.

Familial clustering of testicular germ cell tumour (TGCT) is well-established, whereas the risk of non-testicular cancer among relatives remains inconsistent across studies. To evaluate the overall and site-specific cancer risk among first-degree relatives and grandparents of TGCT patients compared to cancer-free controls. We enrolled 1453 subjects from two andrology centres: 628 TGCT patients, 367 oncohaematological (OH) malignancy patients, and 458 cancer-free controls undergoing vasectomy. Family cancer history was collected through standardized questionnaires documenting cancer occurrence and type in first-degree relatives and grandparents, categorizing malignancies into 16 specific groups. Positivity for family history of cancer was significantly higher in the TGCT cohort compared with controls (p<0.001), whereas no significant increase was observed in the OH cohort. Conversely, analyses based on tumour rates (total number of cancers) revealed significantly higher tumour burden in both TGCT and OH cohorts compared to controls (p<0.001). Site-specific analysis in TGCT patients' relatives showed significantly higher risk of TGCT (OR: 6.11, 1.83-20.39), pancreas (OR: 9.05, 2.17-37.66), thyroid (OR: 6.32, 1.45-27.55), uterine (OR: 4.82, 1.08-21.44) and urinary tract cancers (OR: 3.07, 1.43-6.58). Both TGCT and OH relatives showed a significant risk for breast, gastrointestinal and lung cancer. We observed notable familial clustering of cancers, not limited to TGCT but spanning several malignancies. Many of the observed associations involve cancers within the Lynch syndrome spectrum, suggesting TGCT as a potential atypical manifestation of Lynch-associated tumorigenesis. Nonetheless, the familial aggregation may also reflect gene-environment interactions and susceptibility loci related to hormone-dependent pathways, as evidenced by the elevated risks of breast and uterine cancers in TGCT families. One of the major limitations of our study, like many others relying on familial data, is the potential for recall bias in patient-reported family histories. Our study demonstrates a significant familial cancer risk in TGCT patients, underscoring the importance of detailed family history collection and the need for further studies to clarify the contributing genetic and environmental determinants.