1. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Thinking Way Outside the Box: Maggie Rioux Amy Stout MBLWHOI Library Woods Hole, MA Creating a Digital Herbarium using Voyager and ImageServer

2. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org The MBLWHOI Library Digital Herbarium www.mbl.edu/herbarium/ Specimen images and data freely available on Internet via fully searchable database Joint project with NEAS Funded by WHOI Sea Grant

3. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

4. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Moving the Herbarium

5. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org The Herbarium Today

6. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

7. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org

8. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

9. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Digitizing Herbarium Specimens Epson Expression 1640XL Graphic Arts scanner Scanner inverted with custom built stand Camera/copystand for delicate specimens

10. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Scanning Workstation

11. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

12. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Full Sheet and Enlargement Images – B. hamifera

13. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Full Sheet and Enlargement Images – L. orcadensis

14. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Full Sheet and Enlargement Images – C. cristata

15. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

16. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

17. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org ImageServer Screen

18. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

19. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

20. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Detailed Record

21. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org

22. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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

23. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Where We Are – March 2005 Project began in December 2002 with marine algae 1200 specimens scanned 400 full records

24. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org Demonstration Overview Image Enlargement Browse AlgaeBase NCBI Linkout Bonnemaisonia hamifera (3608)

25. © 2005 MBLWHOI Library www.mblwhoilibrary.org 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