A grant has been awarded to Utah Valley State College under the direction of Dr. James G. Harris and Dr. Renee Van Buren for partial support of a project to digitize plant collection data from the UVSC Herbarium and make the information available on the worldwide web to students, researchers, and the general public as a virtual herbarium. Each collection record will be entered into a searchable online database, georeferenced for use in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications, and photographed with a high-resolution digital camera. Users of the UVSC Virtual Herbarium will be able to locate specimen records in a searchable database, plot plant distributions on a map, and view high-resolution photographic images that will permit critical examination of the morphological details of each specimen. The Virtual Herbarium will increase the educational and scientific value of the UVSC Herbarium by providing unlimited access to collection data and by facilitating rapid integration and analysis of the data. In addition, the Virtual Herbarium, by reducing the need to handle actual herbarium specimens, will reduce the incidental damage that inevitably occurs with their use.
The UVSC Virtual Herbarium will significantly enhance botanical education at UVSC. Students enrolled in a variety of botany courses and members of the UVSC Plant Identification Team require access to the UVSC Herbarium for study. The Virtual Herbarium will provide students with continuous access from any computer with a connection to the worldwide web. In addition, the UVSC Virtual Herbarium will be a valuable tool for researchers in a wide variety of fields, including systematics, ecology, and plant geography. The UVSC Herbarium includes National Park collections, specimens collected for a study of Utah endangered plants, one of the most complete collections in the country of the arctic/alpine plant genus Braya (Cruciferae), and specimens from remote and poorly collected locations in Utah. Access to the UVSC Virtual Herbarium will be of value to land managers, state and federal agencies charged with inventorying and protecting the nation's endangered and threatened plants, and other individuals and organizations needing information about plant identification and distribution.
The UVSC Virtual Herbarium will have an educational and scientific impact throughout the region. Public schools and smaller colleges typically do not have herbaria. The UVSC Virtual Herbarium will serve as an educational resource for teachers and students at these institutions as well as for students at larger universities who may not have adequate access to a herbarium. The UVSC Virtual Herbarium will meet a need that is currently not being met, by providing a valuable scientific and educational resource to the public.
