© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Thinking Way Outside the Box: Maggie Rioux Amy Stout MBLWHOI Library Woods Hole, MA Creating a Digital Herbarium using Voyager and ImageServer

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library The MBLWHOI Library Digital Herbarium Specimen images and data freely available on Internet via fully searchable database Joint project with NEAS Funded by WHOI Sea Grant

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library About the MBLWHOI Library Herbarium Originally part of the George M. Gray Museum Roughly 8,000 specimens Over 100 years of collecting Documents flora of Cape Cod and the Islands Recently moved to a new location – now part of the MBLWHOI Library

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Moving the Herbarium

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library The Herbarium Today

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library A Valuable Collection Cape Cod a region of great botanical interest Most of Massachusetts’ rare plants are found on Cape Cod or in Connecticut River Valley Nexus of cold northern waters and warm southern waters – results in great marine algal species diversity

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Why a Digital Herbarium? Rich searching capabilities - greatly facilitate the study of floristic and environmental changes over time Facilitate updating of records Make the collection available to researchers worldwide Create an online compendium of the flora of Cape Cod and the Islands Contribute towards preservation of the collection

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Digitizing Herbarium Specimens Epson Expression 1640XL Graphic Arts scanner Scanner inverted with custom built stand Camera/copystand for delicate specimens

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Scanning Workstation

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Image Specifications Entire sheet scanned into PhotoShop at 600 ppi Creates 7000 pixel, ~200 MB TIFF Resized to 960 pixel, ~200 KB JPEG for web 960 width gives a good overall impression of the entire herbarium sheet Portions of original hi-res TIFF selected for detail images

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Full Sheet and Enlargement Images – B. hamifera

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Full Sheet and Enlargement Images – L. orcadensis

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Full Sheet and Enlargement Images – C. cristata

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Homegrown Database vs. Voyager Voyager is stable and supported by EISI Already running Voyager and know how to use it Other projects have used Voyager MARC, which is familiar, could be used to catalog Herbarium specimens Could be paired with ImageServer, which we also have already

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library ImageServer JPEGs are filed on the server via ImageServer Images are associated with data from the herbarium sheets ImageServer client communicates with Voyager Cataloging client on the same workstation Cataloging creates a skeletal MARC record containing a link to the associated images

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library ImageServer Screen

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Full Cataloging of Herbarium Specimens The Herbarium database is separate from the main Library catalog The record is fleshed out by a cataloger More than 50 data elements are possible Uses MARC adapted to Herbarium specimen data MARC tag tables have been edited for herbarium data – fields and subfields re-labeled for ease of cataloging The headings in public display are tailored to Herbarium data

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library HerbMARC Examples 245 Title = Current Species Name 246 Varying Form of Title = Common Name 247 Former Title = Synonyms 100 Author/Creator = Collector 700 Added Entry-Personal Name = Additional Collectors/Determiners, etc. 651 Geographic Names = Locations

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Detailed Record

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Workflow 7 volunteers scan specimens, creating tiff and jpeg images of full herbarium sheet Volunteers then link the images to brief data in ImageServer Project staff create detail images from the original tiffs Project staff perform full cataloging of specimens

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Where We Are – March 2005 Project began in December 2002 with marine algae 1200 specimens scanned 400 full records

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library Demonstration Overview Image Enlargement Browse AlgaeBase NCBI Linkout Bonnemaisonia hamifera (3608)

© 2005 MBLWHOI Library How to make your image be the hot link to itself Use a separate image as the hotlink: –856 7 $2 sdc $f 3,669,1 $z Have ImageServer generate a thumbnail: –856 7 $2 sdc $f 3,669,1 $z