The Natural Science Collections Alliance presented a briefing on digitization of natural history collections for staff of congressional offices, federal agencies, scientific organizations, and non-governmental organizations. The event was held in the Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, DC on 14 December 2015.
Dr. Larry Page, President of NSC Alliance and Director of iDigBio, provided the context of what digitization is and why it matters.
Dr. Barbara Thiers, Vice President for Science Administration at the New York Botanical Garden, provided examples of how digitized specimen data is helping to address infectious disease, invasive species, and loss of biodiversity.
Dr. Austin Mast, Director of the Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium at Florida State University, presented on crowdsourcing collection digitization.
Looking for more resources? Read the paper from NSC Alliance on “Biological Specimens Go Online: The New Digital Frontier of Collections.”