About the MBLWHOI Library Digital Herbarium

Project Staff

Amy Stout
Digital Systems & Services Coordinator

Joe deVeer
Technical Services Coordinator

Why a Digital Herbarium?

The MBLWHOI Library Herbarium documents the flora of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and associated coastal islands. Cape Cod is a region of great botanical and ecological interest. Most of Massachusetts rare plants occur on Cape Cod or in the Connecticut River Valley. The Cape is well known to marine botanists as a phytogeographic boundary between the cold water flora typical of more northerly regions, and the flora of warmer waters to the south. As such, the Cape is unique in the number of marine algal species found there. The herbarium collection, dating back to the 1850s, documents this important and diverse flora.

Placing specimen images and data into a fully searchable, web-accessible database will:

1. Greatly facilitate the study of floristic and environmental changes over time, including changes in geographic ranges of species.
2. Make the collection available to researchers throughout the world.
3. Create an online compendium of the flora of Cape Cod and the Islands.
4. Contribute towards preservation of the collection.

Each database record contains specimen data from the herbarium labels and other available records. Species-specific information including current and antiquated taxonomy, geographic and vertical distribution, and seasonality, is added to each record, creating a content-rich compendium of the marine and terrestrial flora of the region. Digitization of the marine algae collection is a joint project with the Northeast Algal Society. Biological information about each species is taken from the NEAS Keys to Benthic Marine Algae of the Northeastern Coast of North America from Long Island Sound to the Strait of Belle Isle. As stated in the Keys, a goal of the Northeast Algal Society is to bring together information on the diversity of algal species and their distributions along the northeastern coast of North America. It is our hope that this database will contribute to this endeavor.

Digitizing the Collection

Following methods established by the vPlants" project, digitization of herbarium specimens is accomplished with the use of an EPSON Expression 1640XL Graphic Arts scanner and Adobe Photoshop software. The scanner is inverted and held above the support bed by means of a custom built stand. This is necessary to allow herbarium sheets to be placed right side up during scanning to avoid damaging the specimens. Specimens too bulky or fragile to be scanned will be photographed with a digital camera and copy stand.

At least two images are created for each specimen; a thumbnail (200 pixels), and a Full size jpeg (960 pixels) of the entire herbarium sheet. Viewed at a screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels, the Full size image is very close to actual size. Many specimens have enlargement images for detail of a portion of the plant or a close-up view of small specimens. Jpeg resolution is set to 86ppi for web presentation and 600ppi for archival tiffs.

Endeavor Information Systems Voyager Integrated Library System software is used for specimen cataloging and image management. Each specimen is fully cataloged using MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) with all data elements mapped to the Darwin Core metadata standard for description of natural history collections.