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A cost-effective software solution for vivarium management

Lab Animal volume 46, pages 17–20 (2017)Cite this article

Record keeping is vital to the functioning of a research vivarium. Both the needs of scientists and the responsibilities of regulatory overseers require maintaining detailed records. As a manager of a vivarium at a small private research institute, I was tasked with developing a record keeping system to keep track of a main vivarium with space for 504 cages as well as two satellite laboratories (an ABSL-3 and a procedure room). Our primary goals were to create a database for logging room inspections and documenting equipment maintenance as well as an animal inventory that could also be used to generate cage cards. Commercial software packages have been developed to meet the needs of vivarium managers, but the cost of specialty or bespoke software can be prohibitive. A solution for our facility was instead found in adapting a user friendly and inexpensive database software for use in the vivarium setting.

Tap Forms (currently at version 5, Tap Zapp Software Inc.; www.tapforms.com) is a database software available for Apple OS X ($49.99 USD) and iOS ($16.99 USD) operating systems. The software is designed to be easily configured, making it amenable to a multitude of unique and specific tasks, but is simple enough to be used to create new databases with a minimal investment in time to review instructions and/or online tutorials. This article will describe how we utilized Tap Forms to assist with our vivarium's record keeping needs.

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Figure 1: Database viewing options in the OS X version of Tap Forms.
Figure 2: Inspection record for a procedure room as viewed on an iPad.
Figure 3: Example of a cage card record in default layout.
Figure 4: Dynamic tracking of cage and animal numbers.
Figure 5
Figure 6: Examples of various custom layouts used to print cage cards.

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  1. and the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Blood Systems Research Institute, San Francisco, CA, University of California, San Francisco, CA.,

    Marcus O. Muench

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  1. Marcus O. Muench
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Correspondence to Marcus O. Muench.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Muench, M. A cost-effective software solution for vivarium management. Lab Anim 46, 17–20 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.1160

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