[Taxacom] Herbarium databases

[Mary Barkworth]

For the US, the aggregator for non-federal natural history collections is iDigBio, BISON serves only data for the US but it comes, as I understand it, from federal repositories, GBIF and possibly iDigBio. Speaking only for herbaria - of which there are around 600 in the US ranging in size from 500 to 8 million plus - not all are databasing and some of those that are have not yet made their data available via iDigBio. There are also some major regional herbarium networks. Urls for the largest networks: http://intermountainbiota.org (a portal to the SEINet network which has over 160 contributing herbaria and about 5 portals), http://pnwherbaria.org/ (Pacific Northwest Herbaria), http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/consortium/ (California herbaria), http://www.neherbaria.org/ (herbaria of northeast). Some of these networks  include herbaria from Canada and Mexico. There are also four taxonomically oriented herbaria networks - lichens, fungi, bryophytes, macroalgae. Some small federal herbaria (e.g., forest service or park service herbaria) belong to a regional network and may make their data available to iDigBio. 

Some herbaria provide data to a regional network and iDigBio and GBIF separately, some to IDigBio and a network, some just to the network.  Very few herbaria are completely databased and those that are are the smaller herbaria. Most herbaria have emphasized their US collections in databasing, often collections that part of the US in which the herbarium is located, but there are lots of records from specimens collected outside the US in these resources. The Californian network is the only one that serves only records from its area. 

Some of the records have been uploaded from tables etc. that were developed within individual herbaria and include preventable errors but the number of records available is large and increasing daily - and data cleaning is taking place. 
Mary


-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Torbjörn Tyler
Sent: Friday, September 4, 2015 12:40 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Herbarium databases

Hi!

The different databases of all the major Swedish herbaria (S, LD, UPS, GB, UME, OHN) have a joint search page: http://www.herbarium-ume.se/virtuella_herbariet/index.html

However, only about 30% of our collections are databased and it is strongly biased towards material from the Nordic countries and some other regions of the world (i.e. all Greek and most of the Austrian collections as LD are databased).

Yours,
Torbjörn


> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Torbjörn Tyler, Ph.D,
> 
> – Curator at herbarium LD.
> – Editor in Chief of Nordic Journal of Botany.
> 
> – Responsible for the project The Hieracia of Sweden.
> 
> Postal address:
> Botanical Museum
> Box 117
> SE-221 00 Lund
> 
> Address for parcels and visitors:
> ArkivCentrum Syd
> Porfyrvägen 20
> SE-224 78 Lund
> 
> tel. +46 (0)46-222 42 34
> 
> 
> e-mail: torbjorn.tyler at biol.lu.se<mailto:torbjorn.tyler at biol.lu.se <mailto:torbjorn.tyler at botmus.lu.se>>
> 
> Private address: Enningervägen 12, SE-243 31 Höör (=Hoeoer), tel.
> +46 (0)413-23123.
> ___________________________________________________________________

















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