Herbarium collection to be documented using 'crowdsourcing' with online volunteers
UK museums and universities collectively hold the world's oldest and largest collection of herbarium specimens.
These unnassuming plant samples may be vital for helping to map out the ecology of the planet and to assist in future studies of taxonomy, ecology, conservation and genetic biodiversity.
For this to become possible requires that the collections be electronically documented; unfortunately many institutions simply do not have enough staff available to make this possible.
Enlisting the help of internet users
The Herbaria at Home project steps in enlisting the power of the internet and enthusisatic volunteer botanists. The collections are digitally photographed and uploaded to the Herbaria at Home project web site (herbariaunited.org/atHome/).
Volunteers simply register with the site, look at the photographs and record any information that is written on the specimens onto the database.
It is hoped that the main core of volunteers should only need to devote about 30 minutes a week and if others only contribute a small amount of their time that this will be enough to get the work done.
This concept is not without precedent. Galaxy Zoo uses the same technique but instead asks volunteers to describe photographs of celestial bodies as a way to speed up the process of classifying galaxies. This technique enlists the help of people with a passing interest in the subject as well as experienced amateurs.
Why not have a go at adding value to our national collections too?
See
Herbaria at Home
Galaxy Zoo
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