Digitizing specimens in a small herbarium: A viable workflow for collections working with limited resources

Area of Science:

• Botany
• Museum Studies
• Informatics

Background:

• Small herbaria comprise a large proportion of U.S. herbaria.
• Many small herbaria face challenges in digitizing their collections due to limited resources.
• Digitization is crucial for specimen accessibility and data sharing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a practical digitization workflow for small herbaria.
• To provide actionable insights for small institutions undertaking collection digitization.
• To assess the time and cost efficiency of specimen digitization.

Main Methods:

• Developed a digitization workflow at the Arkansas State University Herbarium (STAR).
• Calculated hourly rates for imaging and databasing specimens.
• Mapped specimen collection data to identify geographic strengths.

Main Results:

• Successfully digitized all 17,678 flowering plant specimens at STAR.
• Achieved a mean imaging rate of 145 specimens/hour.
• Identified significant differences in databasing rates between graduate and undergraduate students.

Conclusions:

• The described workflow can enable one person to digitize a 20,000-specimen collection in under 2.5 years, working 10 hours/week.
• This approach is suitable for small herbaria with limited resources.
• The workflow facilitates electronic data publishing and enhances collection accessibility.