Good question; which I've only encountered with reference to
library/archives furniture. There the concensus seems to be
prefer either aluminum, or steel with electrostatically-applied powder
coating of epoxy-polyester hybrid, oven-cured; or heat-cured
acrylic resin with catalyzed melamine. Sounds exotic, but you
will be pleasantly surprised, as I was, to learn that the
equipment & coatings industries are moving toward this anyway,
on their own. Reason? It diminishes EPA solvent hassles.
Problem with wood is that not only it off-gasses, peroxides
mainly, but many of its finishes off-gas too. Off-gassing also
problem with traditional "baked enamel" on steel, in that case
formaldehyde + solvents. I don't know what the "enemies" of fossil
collections are. My geology major (half of a double) was in the Cincy
Arch, where most of our locals were carbonates, as I recall.
>According to JANE C MACKNIGHT:
>
> I would appreciate some feedback from collection managers, curators
> or anyone with responsibilities for caring for vertebrate paleo
> collections.
>
> When ordering new museum-quality metal cabinets for storage of fossil
> material, would you use metal or wooden drawers?  Thanks.
>
> Jane MacKnight
> Idaho Museum of Natural History
> [log in to unmask]
>