1. THE PRESENT STATE OF THE DIGITALIZATION IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO CASE OF THE HERBARIUM OF LWIRO. By: 1 Mwanga Mwanga Ithe, 1 Wabika Dumbo, 2 Franck Theeten, 2 Mergen Patricia, 3 Salvator Ntore, 3 Steven Dessein 1 Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles/Lwiro (CRSN-Lwiro) 2 Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA)/Tervuren 3 Botanic Garden Meise/Belgium (BGM)

2. Introduction  In general, the digitalization of herbaria in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has already reached a very high level.  All herbaria in DRC was began that practical of conserving plants.  About 18,000 updated and scanned images that are posted on the website of JSTOR. Nevertheless, there are still about 400,000 specimens to be scanned across the country.

3. Introduction  The herbarium of Lwiro has not escaped this opportunity.  He started these kinds of work in 2011 by the support of the Botanic Garden of Meise (BGM), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) and the Word Conservation Society (WCS).

4. Presentation of the Lwiro Center  The CRSN/Lwiro is a research center located in South-Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo which is active in several domains such as botany, zoology, geophysical sciences and humanities sciences.

5.  The Research Center of Lwiro include five departments: -Biology, -Geophysics, -Nutrition, -Documentation and -Environment.

6.  The herbarium of Lwiro which is the third in DRC after Yangambi (YBI) and Kinshasa (IUK), is in Biology department of CRSN/Lwiro.  Lwiro herbarium has been created in 1953. Whithin this, we have: - Laboratory of Systematic and plant Taxonomy - Laboratory of plant ecology - Laboratory of Ethno-botany  In the Lwiro Herbarium we have 15,000 specimens of plants preserved which are grouped in two big parts, the Monocotyledonous and the Dicotyledonous.

7. Aim of digitalization in herbarium  To preserve and to protect specimens against risks of deterioration by manipulations.  To archive collections and to put them to disposition of the public.  To allow the public to reach these collections and to consult them from afar.

8. Methodology o First and for most, we start with the selection of specimens to digitize according to the goal of the study. o And after that, we prepare the selected material for digitalization.

9. Result and prospective  Through this occasion more than 800 specimens of types and endemic plants of Central Africa had been digitized and are now available on the portal of JSTOR: http://plants.jstor.org/lwiro. http://plants.jstor.org/lwiro  Scientific names of 1,000 specimens of plants have been updated.

11. http://biocase.africamuseum.be/biocase_rmca/querytool/main.cgi?dsa=cabin_crsn_lwiro

12. Result and prospective  About 500 specimens were published with CABIN project in collaboration with the Royal Museum for Central Africa - Tervuren in Belgium.  Approximately 3,000 samples were updated and digitized.  But the work continued, currently about 700 samples for upper and lower plants (Angiosperm and Bryophyte) of Irangi reserve, which will probably be published on the website of the CABIN on his second project.

13. Result and prospective  With these initiatives, our institution got an experience in digitization of natural history collections.  But we are still looking for more training and collaboration opportunities in order to improve this work.  Ultimately, we would like to get all the collection digitalized and published online to improve their accessibility and keep valuable scientific data in a safe format.

14. Acknowledgment  We are indebted to the Director of Botanic Garden of Meise and through him all the institution, for facilitating digitizing work.  Our thanks go to the Director and all person of Royal Museum for Central Africa for checking, normalizing and publishing database into BioCASe.  Our acknowledgment goes also to the museum of Kew for the material used in digitization.

15.  We say also thanks for WCS and ARCOS for their assistance in this kind of work.  We can not forgot the Belgian cooperation and JRS for facilitating our participation to the TDWG 2014 and 2015 conference.  We can’t forget the management committee of Lwiro for theirs implications.

16. We say Thanks