The New York Times published an article October 19, 2015, that highlights several digitization efforts from around the world including iDigBio:
"One of the largest efforts in the United States, called the Integrated Digitized Biocollections, or iDigBio, is currently underway at the University of Florida. Funded by the National Science Foundation, iDigBio has brought together 283 institutions in all 50 states, mostly museums and universities, to create a common language and process for digitizing images of species.
“Everybody knows there’s a tremendous amount of information in natural history collections,” said Larry Page, the curator of fishes at the Florida Museum of Natural History and the director of iDigBio. “But the collections are inaccessible to virtually everyone. Even scientists working on particular groups of organisms don’t know what’s contained in the other museums.”
Currently, the iDigBio search portal contains 45 million specimen records and about 12 million images. But that is not nearly enough, Dr. Page said. He estimates there are half a billion specimens in the United States alone.
The project, in its fifth and final year of funding, has requested support for another five years. Dr. Page says the portal will prove an invaluable resource for scientists."
Visit the original article to read more, or visit the related article: A guide to digitized natural history collections.
Photo courtesy of the Florida Museum.
