Small Collections Grant
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Enhancing collection management in the Seychelles National Herbarium.
Seychelles
Digitally image, Conserve
Cost (USD):
1883
SEY
Seychelles National Herbarium
Objective:
Our Herbarium currently does not have an internal budget for digitization and a relatively small budget for collection management. We have identified several aspects of improvement which our Herbarium has been striving to achieve but due to funding constraints, these tasks have yet to be fully realized. With this current grant, the team aims to make the following improvements:
1) Upgrading collection management conditions and
2) Enhance digitization practices.
Timetable:
March – April 2020:
Ordering and shipping of material/equipment to the Seychelles.
Note: This can vary greatly depending on where material/equipment is being shipped from and the time taken to ship material to the Seychelles.
May-July 2020:
• Replacing old covers with new genus folders for the Dicot family collection.
• Prepare new imaging set-up using the Kaiser Copy stand and new camera lens.
• Imaging any remainder specimens/new specimens added to collection within that period.
August – September 2020:
Replacing old covers with new genus folders for Monocots and Fern family collection.
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:
1) The project will be coordinated by the two staff members of the Seychelles Herbarium, Curator Mr Charles Morel and Assistant curator Ms. Tarah Padayachy. To date, we have not been able to fully carry out one of the most basic methods of preservation which is using archival-quality materials for all products that come into contact with the specimen itself. This presents a challenge to the long term preservation of the specimens being mounted and does not allow for proper handling and cataloguing of these specimens. This project aims to address this issue by replacing the current inadequate species/genus folders with archival quality covers which will be purchased under the grant.
2) To date, our digital database includes data on ca. 4,500 Herbarium specimens with barcodes and associated images. We currently rely on a homemade imaging/lighting set-up due to financial constraints. Recently our Herbarium was fortunate enough to receive a Kaiser Copy Stand equipped with a cold light fluorescent lamps. This is a very useful tool which has yet to be used for imaging since our imaging camera is not equipped with a lens that can capture specimens at with the limited height range of the copy stand. With the aim of improving our imaging set-up, we propose to use the rest of the grant budget to purchase a more suitable camera lens. This will facilitate the imaging process in the long run and ultimately produce better quality images for research and online sharing.
Institution:
IH Code:
Country:
Target areas:
Applicant First Name/s:
email:
"Other" target:
Charles Morel
Applicant Last Name/s: