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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published best practice guidelines for Biological Resource Centers in 2007. Similarly, the International Society for Environmental and Biological Repositories publishes best practice guidelines with regular updates. While the latter is more appropriate for collections of tissue specimens, and neither deal with herbaria or natural history collections, these together provide a virtual step-by-step guide for the management of ex situ microbial germplasm repositories. Because neither guideline gives detailed instructions on how to implement best practices it is valuable to share practices from existing collections. The Fungal Genetics Stock Center has over fifty years of experience with techniques and implements modern data and management practices. For example, the FGSC uses at least two formats to store every isolate, has an off-site back-up, works from established standard operating protocols, and has clear strain accession and archiving policies. Moreover, the FGSC has trained staff and appropriate facilities to carry out the operations of a biological resource center. These simple examples form the foundation of best practice guidelines for culture collections.<p><p>Keywords: