The Digital Facility – Supporting Digitisation

Vladimir Blagoderov

NHM Science Strategy and Digitisation

The Digital NHMOrigins, Evolution and FuturesBiodiversity DiscoveryNatural Resources and HazardsScience, Society and Skills

What is Digitisation?

In narrow sense: making it digital• Digital form of occurrence record of the specimen• Linked to additional information: – taxonomic: determination, taxonomic history,

references; – curatorial: collection history, location; – multimedia: photo/audio/video/3D models/analysis

results etc.Broader: managing, using and sharing data

Processes:

• databasing/label or registry transcription• georeferencing• imaging• ingest into Emu

Different levels of digitisation:• Collection level

descriptions,taxonomic indexing,drawer level imaging (collection management)

• Specimen/lot occurrence records (ecological projects)

• High quality specimen imaging (taxonomic projects)

Functions of Digital Facilities• Help to organise your digitisation work: – design the best suited workflow, – recommend available instruments and tools, – ensure quality and following standards

• Provide labour force and manage larger digitisation projects

Prioritising and Planning:

Research/Collection Management/Facilities work together

• Justification – Users: researchers, curators, external users

• Scope: Collection Management and Users• Method: Facilities and Users and Collection

Management

Instruments:

• Macrophotography

Instruments:

• Macrophotography• Photomicrography

Instruments:

• Macrophotography• Photomicrography• Herbarium

scanning/photographing

Instruments:

• Macrophotography• Photomicrography• Herbarium

scanning/photographing

• Collection scanning

Instruments:

• Macrophotography• Photomicrography• Herbarium

scanning/photographing

• Collection scanning• Slide scanning

50,000 slides/yearUp to 0.11μ/px

1,000,000 slides/yearUp to 17μ/px