The effectiveness and limitations of digital images for taxonomic research

Phang, Aireen; Atkins, H. J.; Wilkie, Peter

doi:10.1002/tax.12767

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 39 publications

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“…Whilst undoubtedly helping to facilitate greater public access to collections, criticisms of natural history digitization have highlighted the limited applications of current digitization protocols to taxonomists and other researchers (Phang et al., 2022). These critiques are of particular concern to the amateur naturalist community who serve not only as providers of data, but also as end users, and, often, volunteer digitisers and transcribers.…”

Section: Digitizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Messy databases: Recognizing transcribers as experts and engaging amateur naturalists in digitization

Smith

2024

Curator The Museum Journal

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Amateur naturalists and natural history societies are abundant throughout the UK, and indeed throughout the globe, and have intimate relationships with the museum sector. Importantly, amateur naturalists and natural history societies often possess expertise in fields underserved by museums, such as taxonomy or the local history of natural history. The amateur naturalist, in the context of the museum, is simultaneously volunteer and expert and this dichotomy can lead to tension in the naturalist‐museum professional relationship. The rise of mass‐participation citizen science and digitization projects are likely to further enflame this tension as naturalists can feel marginalized as their identifier of “volunteer” subsumes that of “expert.” This paper recommends best practice when working with amateur naturalists and natural history societies. It examines the different value systems and priorities broadly held by museum professionals and naturalists, with a particular focus on digitization. This paper also suggests how the museum field can work toward more equitable knowledge building and sharing practices when working with naturalists and other expert‐volunteers. In particular, it puts forward the concept of messy databases as a way to meaningfully engage with volunteer‐experts.

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Section: Digitizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Messy databases: Recognizing transcribers as experts and engaging amateur naturalists in digitization

Smith

2024

Curator The Museum Journal

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Mapping the Digitisation Workflow in a University Herbarium

Thompson,

Birch

2023

RIO

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Specimens or objects in natural history collections hold substantial research and cultural value that is enhanced where these items are made digitally available. Benefits of digitisation include increasing open access to collection-based biodiversity data, increasing productivity of scientific research, enabling novel research applications of digitally accessible data, reducing preservation requirements through reduced object handling, and expanding potential for “remote curation” in collections. However, the time available for object and data digitisation is limited for most collections. Well documented digitisation workflows can ensure that curation time is efficiently applied to achieve digitisation outputs, and that digitisation standards are consistently applied within and among projects. While this case study focused on the generation of digitisation workflows in a medium-sized Australian university-based herbarium, the findings of this study are relevant to collections globally. The curation workflows comprise a set of modular steps required for the digitisation of herbarium specimen data and images. Steps are clearly identified as requiring human-mediation versus those that can be automated, those that require on-site versus remote-access, and those that require transfer or transformation of data or files. This clarity enables consideration of the opportunities and challenges for increasing efficiencies for collection-based digitisation, data and file management. The maps provide a contextual framework for herbarium-based digitisation pathways for those who work with specimen-derived biodiversity data, and an insight into these tools for those who are not familiar with herbarium protocols.

show abstract

The effectiveness and limitations of digital images for taxonomic research

Cited by 2 publications

References 39 publications

Messy databases: Recognizing transcribers as experts and engaging amateur naturalists in digitization

Messy databases: Recognizing transcribers as experts and engaging amateur naturalists in digitization

Mapping the Digitisation Workflow in a University Herbarium

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