Herbarium labels

[Harvey E. Ballard, Jr.]

Regarding accessioning data as one is making herbarium specimen labels, I
do both with Filemaker Pro software.  I have a standard format I've devised
for databasing all herbarium records of all sorts; and I also have a
secondary format that I use to print the herbarium specimen label when I'm
done typing in the information I want to database.  The program is very
user-friendly and also highly flexible--it uses all the foreign language
characters, underlines and italics of Word or other word-processing
programs I'm familiar with, too.  By using precisely the same format to
type in the label data that I would use to database herbarium collections,
I know I'm getting all the necessary data into the correct fields.  When
I'm done databasing my own specimens, I select the format I have developed
for printing herbarium specimen labels (which outputs a subset of the
databased information)--again, very easy to do in Filemaker--and I print
the labels.  Perhaps best of all, Filemaker is quite inexpensive compared
with other databasing programs, and is more flexible and easy to work with
than most.

Harvey Ballard

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harvey E. Ballard, Jr., Assistant Professor, Plant Evolution and Systematics
Department of Environmental and Plant Biology
Porter Hall, Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701
(740) 593-4659 (office & lab phone)
(740) 593-1130 (fax)
email: ballardh at ohio.edu OR ballardh at ohiou.edu OR
ballardh at oak.cats.ohiou.edu