Small Collections Grant
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Barcoding and digitizing the Geo Potts Herbarium (BLFU)
Lize Joubert
South Africa
Digitally image, Other
Cost: $
2000
BLFU
Geo Potts Herbarium, University of the Free State
Objective:
Objective 1: Barcode all the specimens in the quick guide and main collection (± 25 000 specimens) and link barcodes to specimen records in BRAHMS.
Objective 2: Digitize all specimens in the quick guide and main collection (± 25 000 specimens) and publish the images on the online database.
Plan:
The Geo Potts Herbarium (BLFU) is a university herbarium housing ±25 000 specimens in its main collection. The collection has already been databased in BRAHMS v. 7.8.2 and published online (https://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/blfu).
In 2019 we acquired a light box (Legler, 2010), Nikon D5200 DSLR camera, laptop and external hard drive with the aim to initiate the digitization of the collection. The collection will be divided into batches of 1000 specimens. Each specimen will be barcoded by the herbarium manager, Miss Pienaar, followed by specimen imaging and metadata capture using DigiCamContro v. 2.2.1 by a herbarium intern. Miss Pienaar will then edit and crop images as necessary in Gimp v. 2.10.12 before linking images and scanning the specimen barcodes to the specimen records in BRAHMS. All images (JPEG and RAW) and specimen records will be backed up on the external hard drive as well as the University of the Free State server.
During 2020 the work will be carried out by the herbarium manager, who will devote 40 hours per month to this project. For the first nine months of the project we aim to employ a postgraduate intern to work on this project for 18 hours per month. If an intern can be employed this workflow should result in a minimum of 1000 processed specimens per month. Without an intern, Miss Pienaar can process 650 specimens per month.
Legler, B. 2010. Assembling the Custom Components for Specimen Imaging. Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria.
Timetable:
April - December 2020: Herbarium manager and intern working on the project - 9000 specimens processed and available online.
If funding is available to employ an intern for the remainder of the project:
January – December 2021: Herbarium manager and intern working on the project – additional 11 000 specimens processed and available online.
January – June 2022: Herbarium manager and intern working on the project – additional 5 000 specimens processed and available online – completion of the project.
If no funding is available to employ an intern for the remainder of the project:
January – December 2021: Herbarium manager working on the project – additional 7 000 specimens processed and available online.
January – December 2022: Herbarium manager working on the project – additional 7 000 specimens processed and available online.
January – March 2023: Herbarium manager working on the project – additional 2 000 specimens processed and available online – completion of the project.
Referee 1:
Dr David Goyder
Referee 2:
Mr Pieter Bester
Scoring Rubric
Your name:
Collection Improvement/Maintenance
1. Contribution to the generation of digital herbarium data (digitization: data entry, setting up database structure, purchasing equipment).
2. Contribution to enhancing our understanding of the flora by making new herbarium specimens available (processing of backlog).
3. Contribution to enhancing our understanding of the flora by making new herbarium specimens available (shipping endangered collection to another herbarium).
4. Contribution towards improving conservation status of specimens in herbarium (better folders, protecting covers, mounting paper, labeling, etc.).
This proposal scores:
/120
IAPT community building
5. Herbarium's potential for success.
6. Perceived need, extent to which the project will benefit from IAPT funding.
7. Sharing specimens with other herbaria.
This proposal scores:
/40
Broader Impacts
8. The project will yield durable benefits (specimens, digitized metadata, databases, websites).
9. The proposed project involves outreach/mentoring and broad dissemination.
This proposal scores:
/40
84
Proposal number: