iCollections: introduction

Gordon PatersonChair, iCollections

iCollections: British and Irish Lepidoptera Project

• Digitising British Isles Lepidoptera collection• ~500,000 specimens, 5,000 drawers• Re-curation• Specimen imaging• Complete label information• Georeferencing• Data available through the KE EMu collections

data system

iCollections: WHY BRITISH AND IRISH LEPIDOPTERA?

1) Needed a coherent collection which would provide sufficient numbers of specimens to develop, test and establish suitable mass digitisation pipelines.2) Needed to be of sufficient size to make an impact and to deliver a large volume of data.3) Needed to be scientific and culturally coherent and credible our entire British and Irish collections are of interest to scientists, conservationists and the general public.4) Data produced would address wider scientific and societal issues 5) A collections management perspective what do we have? How many? And where are the gaps?6. There are external sources of information on UK leps (from surveys) so we can use it as a model system to study the utility of collections for macroecological studies.7. This may act as a useful pilot project for a global collaboration - Macro Leps are one of the few 'large' invert groups where it may be possible to do the whole world.

iCollections: Building the pipeline

Preparation

• Specimens and labels are put in individual trays

Imaging • Canon DSRL and macro lens

Rehousing • New drawers

Databasing

• Rapid Data Entry Application

Georeferencing

British & Irish Collections

iCollections: The Digitising Team

Flavia

Johanna

Elisa

Peter

Lyndsey

Sara

Peter

iCollections: The Pipeline in action

Preparation for imaging

Imaging station

Data capture

iCollections: Progress

Record status Count

Completed 63109Need scrutiny 678

Referred to admin 801

iCollections: British & Irish Lepidoptera Project

• 4-6 people over 3 years• Small tasks• Team work• Average imaging rate 163 specimen/day*person• Average time for preparation, imaging and databasing is

approx 3 min• >£1/specimen• Less then 0.1% of damaged specimens

What next?

1)Establish consistent taxonomy within the data capture module

2)Georeferencing

3)KE EMu interface

4)Lots more digitising…!

iCollections Team

Chair: Gordon Paterson; Collections management: Geoff Martin, Martin Honey, Blanca

Huertas, Theresa Howard, Rob HuxleyQA/QC KE EMu: Darrell Siebert;

Workflows: Vladimir Blagoderov , Steve Cafferty; Database/interfaces: Adrian Hine, Chris Sleep, Mike Sadka;

Senior users: Steve Brooks, Ian Kitching; Digitisation Team: Peter Wing, Elisa Cane, Flavia Toloni, Joanna Durant, Sara Albuquerque, Lyndsey Douglas, Gerardo Mazzetta;

Georeferencing/GIS: Malcolm Penn; Administration: Victoria Carter.