The University of Kansas has been awarded a grant to redesign and re-implement the original FishNet into FishNet II. The resulting system will make 2.3 million ichthyological records for ca. 39 million specimens from North America and beyond readily available using the modern natural history collections data sharing protocol DiGIR. This will enable the data to be widely accessed through the many portals that now use this protocol. It will also provide a very low cost and simple-to-maintain open source server software package that can be easily adapted to multiple types of natural history collections. Continued development and maintenance of the DiGIR system will occur over the five year life of the award thus enabling the entire natural history collections community to benefit. The award is collaborative with an award to Tulane University where significant development and integration with the successful GEOLocate georeferencing program will take place, further benefiting the entire natural history collections community.
