Digitization and the future of natural history collections

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1 Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, United States
2 Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, United States
3 Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
4 Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States
5 University of Texas at Austin, Austin, United States
6 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States
7 University of Florida, Gainesville, United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.27859v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Conservation Biology, Plant Science, Data Mining and Machine Learning
Keywords
specimens, baselines, Anthropocene, herbaria, digitization, natural history collections
Copyright
© 2019 Hedrick et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Hedrick B, Heberling M, Meineke E, Turner K, Grassa C, Park D, Kennedy J, Clarke J, Cook J, Blackburn D, Edwards S, Davis C. 2019. Digitization and the future of natural history collections. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27859v1

Abstract

Natural history collections (NHCs) are the foundation of historical baselines for assessing anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. Along these lines, the online mobilization of specimens via digitization–the conversion of specimen data into accessible digital content–has greatly expanded the use of NHC collections across a diversity of disciplines. We broaden the current vision of digitization (Digitization 1.0)–whereby specimens are digitized within NHCs–to include new approaches that rely on digitized products rather than the physical specimen (Digitization 2.0). Digitization 2.0 builds upon the data, workflows, and infrastructure produced by Digitization 1.0 to create digital-only workflows that facilitate digitization, curation, and data linkages, thus returning value to physical specimens by creating new layers of annotation, empowering a global community, and developing automated approaches to advance biodiversity discovery and conservation. These efforts will transform large-scale biodiversity assessments to address fundamental questions including those pertaining to critical modern issues of global change.

Author Comment

This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints. This is intended as a final version and is currently in review a journal other than PeerJ. Updates will be posted following reviews.