Progress in developing an online portalto herbarium specimen collectionsfor Northwestern North America

Ben LeglerDavid Giblin

Dick Olmstead

University of Washingtonblegler@u.washington.edu

Botany 2008Vancouver, B.C.

July 27, 2008

AlaskaBritish Columbia

IdahoMontana

OregonWashington

Yukon Territory

Presentation Outline

• Overview of regional herbaria and collections• Funding and initiation of portal development• Current progress and deliverables• Future directions & unfinished work

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

Regional Herbaria & Collections

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

53 public and private herbaria. 3,344,738 specimens.Alaska

5 herbaria228,681 specimens

(ALA)

British Columbia9 herbaria

890,800 specimens(UBC, V, UVIC)

Washington13 herbaria

1,124,300 specimens(WTU, WS) Oregon

11 herbaria475,300 specimens

(OSC)

Yukon Territory1 herbarium4,000 specimens(private collection)

Montana6 herbaria278,850 specimens(MONTU, MONT)

Idaho8 herbaria342,807 specimens(ID, IDS, SRP, CIC)

Regional Herbaria & Collections

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

Collections currently online:Herbarium # of records onlineOregon State University (OSC) 149,130University of Alaska, Fairbanks (ALA) 143,498University of British Columbia (UBC) 408,200University of Montana (MONTU) 47,000University of Washington (WTU) 166,710

Collections soon to be online:

Total online:914,538

Total expected:410,000?

Herbarium Expected # of recordsAlbertson College (CIC, Idaho) 35,000?Boise State University (SRP, Idaho) 30,000?Idaho State University (IDS) 60,000?University of Idaho (ID) 135,000?Washington State University (WS) 150,000

}

}1,324,538?

Funding and Initiation of Portal Development

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

Supplement Budget:Salary & benefits $18,138Supplies $1,200Travel $804Indirect costs $11,858Total $32,000

1. Link regional herbarium specimen records through online portal.

2. Provide unified access point for online resources associated with participating collections.

3. Develop data-sharing protocols to minimize redundant data entry.

4. Facilitate databasing efforts at smaller institutions.

Stated goals in NSF supplemental request:

Portal initiation:• Discussions among regional curators initiated in late 2006 by Dick

Olmstead following early completion or WTU’s previous NSF grant.

• Favorable support of regional curators led to submission of supplemental request to NSF; request was awarded in early 2007.

Current Progress

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

1. Website providing access to about 400,000 specimens collections from 3 regional herbaria (ALA, OSC, WTU), with infrastructure in place to easily add more collections.

2. Linked list of online resources hosted by regional herbaria.

3. Contact info and statistics for regional herbaria.

What has been accomplished thus far?

1. Data sharing among herbaria to minimize redundant data entry.

2. Facilitate databasing of regionally significant collections at smaller institutions. Note: portal provides a means for smaller institutions to put their data online.

Initial goals not yet accomplished:

Live Web Site Demo

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

http://www.pnwherbaria.org/

Infrastructure & Technology

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

ProviderDatabase

PortalCache

UpdateLog

Data/MetadataRequest

Data/MetadataResponse

DiGIRAccessPoint

CacheUpdateScripts

HTTP/XML

HTTP/HTML

SearchRequest

SearchResponseSearch

Log

WebScripts

PHP, MySQL

ProviderWeb Servers(ALA, OSC, WTU)

PNW Herbaria PortalWeb Server

Web Browser

HTML, JavaScript

Cache update scripts run nightly. Records are cached in full on portal server.

(TODO: provider feedback)

Future Directions & Unfinished Work

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org

1. Integrate additional collections into the portal as they become available online with DiGIR access points.

2. Develop mechanism to report data usage statistics to providers.

3. Migrate to newer and more data-rich data sharing infrastructure (such as an update to Darwin schema, TAPIR).

4. Increase portal functionality with additional features and complete unfinished portal pages! Maintain and update current web site.

5. Facilitate data sharing among herbaria.

6. Assist smaller regional collections with databasing efforts, possibly by developing an online data entry interface.

Much remains to be done:

Additional funding???

Questions?

Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria www.pnwherbaria.org