Small Collections Grant
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Restoration and digitization of half-century-old plant specimen repository from Assam, North East India
India
Database, Digitally image, Process backlog, Ship, Conserve, Other
Cost (USD):
2000
CSIRNEIST
CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat 785 006, Assam, India
Objective:
• Restoration, barcoding and digitization of herbarium collections of plants from NE India since 1950s and shipping duplicates of types, threatened historical collections to BSI.
• Documentation of rare, endangered, threatened and ethnomedicinal flora from different ecological niches of the NE region by increasing herbarium collections.
• Re-arrangement of the herbarium as per Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV.
• Increasing the storage facility for type specimens and historical collections for safe handling.
• To train school, college and university students as out-reach programme on identifying
Timetable:
Restoration, barcoding and digitization of herbarium collections of plants from NE India since 1950s and shipping duplicates of types, threatened historical collections to BSI
Documentation of rare, endangered, threatened and ethnomedicinal flora from different ecological niches of the NE region by increasing herbarium collections (0-9 months)
Re-arrangement of the herbarium as per Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, IV system (0-6 months)
Increasing the storage facility for type specimens and historical collections for safe handling (7-12 months)
To train school, college and university students on identifying different flora of the regions an outreach programme (10-12 months)
Use of AI and ML in metadata (10-12 months)
Scoring Rubric
Reviewer's name:
Collection Improvement (max. 120 points)
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Facilitating access to the physical collections by digitization (e.g., data entry, setting up database structure with an outline of the platform to be used, purchasing equipment, and imaging specimens) – up to 30 points.
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Enhancing physical collections by improving the conservation status of specimens in the herbarium (e.g., better folders, protecting covers, mounting paper, labeling, etc.) – up to 30 points.
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Curating specimens (e.g., updating families, species identification, identifying types) – up to 20 points.
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Increasing our understanding of the flora or funga by making new herbarium specimens available, such as processing of backlog or collecting and mounting of new specimens from understudied sites – up to 20 points.
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Securing collections by distribution of duplicates (or orphan collections) to other regional or international herbaria or shipping endangered collections to another herbarium – up to 20 points.
This proposal scores:
/120
Methods & Funding (max. 40 points)
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Match between the proposed budget and methods for the aims described – up to 10 points.
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Perceived need, the extent to which the project will benefit from IAPT funding: e.g., due to active floristic work or contribution to poorly collected sites, due to threatened conditions of collections, and for the degree of involvement of others (outreach and education). We give more points for herbaria in low- and middle-income countries – up to 20 points.
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Sharing duplicate specimens with other herbaria – up to 10 points.
This proposal scores:
/40
Broader Impacts (max. 40 points)
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Degree of regional importance of the collection or the taxonomic importance of the targeted collection – up to 10 points.
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The project will yield durable benefits (specimens, digitized metadata, databases, websites) – up to 15 points.
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The project involves outreach/mentoring and broad dissemination – up to 15 points.
This proposal scores:
/40
Year of last successful SCG application:
Has applicant applied for SCG before?:
Plan:
From the newly collected specimens new herbarium sheets will be prepared. The restoration and conservation of the historical and old herbarium sheets will be done by cleaning, naphthalene powder dusting, stitching, re-mounting and changing the species and genus covers. The historical, threatened collections and duplicates of types will be shipped to BSI. The barcodes will be generated, printed and attached to the individual sheets. The names of all specimens will be updated following revisionary/monographic works and https://www.worldfloraonline.org/. QR code of specimens will be further generated including the data written on the label and using available templates. The curated database of the specimens will be prepared with name of the species with author, family, place of collection, date of collection, name of collector, and field note. For digitization, barcoded herbarium sheets will be scanned using a flatbed high-resolution scanner HP Scanjet N9120 at 600 dpi. The dataset of each sheet will be linked to the scanned image in the MS Access template and to the MySQL server. The arrangement of the herbarium sheets will be modified as per the APG, IV system. For easy and safe handling of the type and historical specimens, additional storage facilities will be created. The digitized herbarium will be used to train students as an outreach programme on identifying different flora by online and offline training. Metadata will be used in species recognition by AI and ML.
Institution:
IH Code:
Country:
Target areas:
Applicant First Name/s:
email:
Barcoding and to train school, college and university students as out-reach programme •
"Other" target:
Dipanwita Banik
Applicant Last Name/s: