News Articles
Published: 07-26-2012
On 30 June 2012, iDigBio completed its first year of operation. As the national resource for the NSF-funded Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections(ADBC), our first year required that we identify and overcome major organizational hurdles as we develop a national infrastructure for the ADBC institutions. We are pleased to report that our first year was highly successful. In this...
Published: 07-20-2012
All of us at iDigBio are excited to announce the publication of Five Task Clusters that Enable Efficient and Effective Digitization of Biodiversity Collections in ZooKeys 209:19-45 (2012) Special Issue. We look forward to your comments as we continue to look for, encourage and disseminate the most efficient digitization methods for each collection type. iDigBio staff members, Gil Nelson...
Published: 07-09-2012
Dr. Corinna Gries is PI and head of the North American Lichens and Bryophytes Thematic Collections Network. An accomplished researcher and programmer, here she is interviewed by Jill Holliday and discusses some of the history of specimen databasing, the goal of the North American Lichens and Bryophytes TCN, and the importance of public participation and crowd-sourcing to the TCN...
Published: 06-20-2012
Public Participation in Digitization of Biodiversity Specimens Workshop
UPDATE: See Public Participation Workshop Wiki Page for links to the Agenda and how to Attend Remotely
iDigBio, the National Science Foundation’s national HUB for Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (ADBC), is offering a workshop to identify ways to engage the public in the ongoing digitization of...
Published: 06-06-2012
Developing Robust Object-to-Image-to-Data (DROID) Workflow Workshop
30-31st May 2012, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida (FLMNH)
Biological specimens document the historical and modern occurrence of plant and animal species - and most of what we know about the diversity and distribution of life on earth. The majority of collected specimens have yet to be...
Published: 06-05-2012
April 20, 2012 [draft]
Digitization of Standard Microscope Slides
Courtesy of InvertNet and Illinois Natural History Survey
Introduction. The following describes the equipment and procedures for digitizing 20 standard microscope slides at a time using a standard photo-quality flatbed scanner. The resulting scans are of sufficient quality that the slide images may be used subsequently for...
Published: 05-31-2012
Paleocollections Digitization Workshop
26-28th April 2012, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida (FLMNH)
Approximately 100 million fossil specimens exist in natural history museums in the U.S., but only a tiny fraction of these (<10%) are digitized and therefore accessible for research, education, and outreach by downstream users. With other ongoing national (and...
Published: 05-22-2012
Digitizing Vascular and Non-Vascular Plant Collections
Valdosta State University, Valdosta GA
September 17th - 18th, 2012
iDigBio is offering a series of preparation-specific workshops focusing on organizing, launching, and maintaining a biological collections digitization program. The first of these workshops will focus on vascular and non-vascular plant digitization and will be...
Published: 05-03-2012
InvertNet Spring Workshop
The InvertNet TCN held its first workshop on April 13-15 at the University of Illinois (UI) Siebel Center for Computer Science and the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS). Over 40 people attended (view the participant list here), including representatives of iDigBio and all but one of the 14 collaborating institutions. The workshop kicked-off with short...
Published: 04-19-2012
Registration is open for the Specimen Digitization Tools and Practices Workshop at the Botany 2012 Conference. The workshop will introduce current and future biological and paleontological specimen collections staff to resources and workflows that can lead to greater efficiencies in the digitization of their collections. The workshop is organized by iDigBio, the National Resource for...
