Digitizing the University of Cincinnati’s Botany Collection in 2018: Preservation, Collaboration, Maximization

December 6, 2018

On this day, a post on IDigBio shared that the over 100,000 specimens of the University of Cincinnati's botany collection were going digital thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation. 

Many of the herbarium specimens were over a hundred years old.

[The herbarium curator Eric Tepe] opened a folder... to reveal a flower that was plucked on a spring day in 1884. 

He said,

'This is running buffalo clover.

It does really well when there’s some disturbance in the soil. So in bison tracks, it would have been abundant.'

 

Running buffalo clover began to disappear across much of the West with the wide-scale slaughter of buffalo.

Today, the clover is federally protected as an endangered species.

So UC’s specimen is especially valuable for researchers.

In the article, Eric pointed out that the single specimen of Running Buffalo Clover was shipped to two separate researchers over the past few decades - one in Kansas and once to Miami. Digitizing specimens means everyone can access them, and shipping isn't necessary.

By sharing specimens digitally, the originals can remain protected.

Last year, Australian airport customs destroyed a herbarium collection because they were worried about bringing in invasive species. They were unaware they intercepted a priceless 200-year-old French collection on its way to the herbarium in Queensland. These kinds of tragedies can be avoided by going digital. And, if something does happen, at least there is a digital copy - which is better than nothing at all.

In the Cincinnati herbarium, like so many herbariums around the country, these collections have been waiting, largely undisturbed, for over a century.

It's tremendous that the valuable long-ago work of botanists can be seen and referenced by all of us at any time and place - as long as you have wifi.