The purpose of our project is to digitize (i.e., image and database) botanical research specimens at nearly twenty university, college, and federal agency herbaria in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Vascular plant, moss, lichen, and fungal specimens will be included in the project. Once digitized, we will place these records online for the public through an existing Web portal (www.pnwherbaria.org). We are leveraging the cyberinfrastructure (e.g., Ethernet, servers, technical staff) available at several large universities to build partnerships with smaller institutions that otherwise would not have the resources to undertake this activity.
Our project provides tangible benefits to the general public, undergraduate students, and the research community. Digitizing specimens and making them available online creates public access to collections that have been assembled in part through prior federal funding. The specimen data will be downloadable from the Web site, so anyone can use the information to pursue unique interests and questions. Undergraduate students will be involved extensively with imaging and data basing activities, providing them with skills and training applicable to future professional pursuits. Online availability of nearly 2 million Pacific Northwest herbarium specimens will increase access and efficiency for the research community using these collections.
The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria (www.pnwherbaria.org/) provides an online portal to herbarium specimen data for the over 3.6 million specimen records that are housed within the 57+ herbaria in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Yukon Territory. The project began in June of 2010, a collaboration between the University of Idaho Stillinger Herbarium and herbaria at the University of Washington, Oregon State University, and Montana State University with the goal of imaging, databasing, and making available online, herbarium specimens from the Pacific Northwest. Our improved website, funded by the grant, currently provides access to over 2.6 million specimen records and 630,000+ high-resolution images from 27 herbaria, making it the most comprehensive source of herbarium specimen data for the Pacific Northwest. Data are available for nearly all of the major herbaria in our region and a growing portion of the herbaria at smaller institutions and agencies, and cover vascular plants, bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts), algae, lichens, and fungi. A redesigned specimen search page (www.pnwherbaria.org/data/search.php) contains many features besides basic text searches, including map-based searches, images of specimen sheets, and numerous options for filtering, displaying, and downloading data. Specimen images are viewable online at full resolution and serve as a new digital reference for the plants of the Pacific Northwest. You can also create checklists for counties in the region or any arbitrary geographic region, and the datasets are portable through mobile-optimized content to allow access to data and images in the field on a smart phone or tablet. At the University of Idaho Stillinger Herbarium, we have been imaging and databasing our vascular plant collection of ca. 160,000 specimens, as well as several smaller herbaria in the region, including the University of Idaho Extension’s Lambert-Erickson Weed Herbarium. Currently, we have imaged the entire collection and databased more than 132,000 of those specimens. All of these are immediately accessible through the Consortium’s online data portal. At this time, the Consortium has acquired images for more over 630,000 vascular plant specimens from more than 12 different herbaria, including many smaller collections, and databased these, plus another 200,000 bryophytes, lichens, and fungi. Combined with existing data from other contributing herbaria, the total number of specimens accessible through our online portal now exceeds 2.6 million specimens! Undergraduate students have been involved extensively with imaging and databasing activities – at the University of Idaho Stillinger Herbarium we have employed more than 30 different students throughout this process – providing them with skills and training applicable to future professional pursuits. In addition, we have developed a series of online tools, including on-the-fly species checklists, mapping functions, and an interactive specimen image viewer that make accessing the data very straightforward.
