Abstract Detail

A Single Symbiota-based Herbarium Network for the US

Rabeler, Richard [1].

ADBC + Symbiota at MICH: Rapid acceleration and diversification of a digital resource.

Digitization of herbarium specimens at the University of Michigan Herbarium (MICH) began over 40 years ago with the development of a database for recording information about type specimens in the mid-1970s using the TAXIR information storage/retrieval system running on the MTS operating system on an Amdahl 470V/6 mainframe computer. Prior to 2012, several other databasing projects were initiated; most involved collections aligned with faculty research interests. Participation in a multi-institution web portal started in 2007 when MICH joined the JSTOR Global Plants Initiative project. MICH received the first of six TCN grants in 2011, with digitization for the Tri-Trophic TCN beginning in January, 2012. In the last five years, the number of specimens represented by at least a skeletal database record has grown from about 318,000 to over 990,000 with the imaged collections (specimens or labels) growing even further from about 100,000 to over 665,000. Management of this resource has been, up to now, dispersed – with roughly one-half of MICH specimens currently located in Specify with most of the remainder housed in six different Symbiota portals; records in only two of these six overlap. Over 564,000 records were created directly in these portals, often taking advantage of duplicate matching and SALIX parsing during transcription of specimen labels after imaging. A recent move to consolidate the database systems in the University of Michigan natural history museums within an in-house Specify system will not only change workflows within any future TCN projects, but also change the interaction with portals from direct record creation to one of supplying MICH records via an IPT (Internet Portal Toolkit) server.

1 - University of Michigan, Research Museums Center, 3600 Varsity Drive #1042, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48108-2228, USA

Keywords:
Symbiota
TCN
ADBC
Digitization.

Presentation Type: Colloquium Presentations
Session: CO2, A Single, Symbiota-based Herbarium Network for the US
Location: Sundance 2/Omni Hotel
Date: Tuesday, June 27th, 2017
Time: 9:00 AM
Number: CO2003
Abstract ID:256
Candidate for Awards:None