SPNHC 2014: Progress in Digitization: Using Complementarity to Improve Plant Specimen Digitization

Thu, 05/29/2014 - 2:15pm -- ellwood
TitleSPNHC 2014: Progress in Digitization: Using Complementarity to Improve Plant Specimen Digitization
Publication TypePresentation
Year of Publication2014
AuthorsRussell, Rusty, Haston Elspeth, and Nicolson Nicola
Keywordsbotanical specimens, digitization, duplication, efficiency, exsiccatae, herbaria, SPNHC 2014, SPNHC 2014: Progress in Digitization
AbstractUnlike most zoological specimens, botanical collections distinguish themselves by having duplicates, that is, multiple specimens generated from the same collecting event. These are either from the same plant or from a close population and are distributed among multiple herbaria. Over the last two decades, as digitization has become a significant part of doing business in systematics collections, it’s become clear that a great deal of “duplication” of effort has followed “duplication” of plant collections. Aggregators of specimen data, such as GBIF and iDigBio, recognize this phenomenon, as do individual herbaria. In 2005, a GBIF Workshop in Crete, led by the late Larry Speers, addressed this topic and Rusty Russell was tasked with investigating the issues surrounding “duplication”. More recently, a joint effort is underway at RBG-Kew, RBG-Edinburgh and the Smithsonian Institution to develop tools to harness the potential that plant duplicates offer toward making digitization a more efficient enterprise. Past and present activities to address this issue will be described.
URLhttps://www.idigbio.org/sites/default/files/workshop-presentations/spnhc2014/17_Russell-SPNHC%202014-Complementarity.pdf