Digitizing the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History's Historic Invertebrate Collections through the InvertNet TCN
Digitization PEN: Digitizing the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History's Historic Invertebrate Collections through the InvertNet TCN
Project Summary
An award is made to the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History to connect it to the existing InvertNet Thematic Collections Network by digitizing approximately 28,000 insect and crayfish specimens from the museum's zoological research collections. Capturing 2D and 3D images and digitizing irreplaceable data will ensure long-term data preservation and make collection information accessible online to scientists, educators, students, and the public. Museum collections are crucial to modern biological research, and historic specimens are especially necessary in studying the effects of environmental and land use change. However, the fragility of these specimens and the scattered location of collections can make using them in research difficult and inefficient. Digitizing images and data makes specimen information more visible and accessible, increasing the potential for new research and public understanding.
In concert with digitization, the museum will integrate public education with InvertNet research by creating a "traveling trunk" for educators on the theme of invertebrates in the Midwest, updating an existing exhibit on arthropods to include content from the InvertNet project, and developing a traveling exhibit that can be borrowed by schools, nature centers, museums, and other groups in the region. This award is made as part of the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections through the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program and all data resulting from this award will be available through the national resource (https://www.idigbio.org).
Current Research
Not available at this time
Project Leadership
Project Sponsor: University of Iowa
Principal Investigators (PIs): Trina Roberts (PI), Cindy Opitz (Co-PI)
NSF Award Number
Project Website
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Project Collaborators
Not available at this time