Biological collections are a valuable source of information about the world’s organisms. Today, the information from these collections is being shared via the web in ways that benefit everyone. This website is about two websites, OpenHerbarium and OpenZooMuseum, that help collections be part of this global activity. Both sites are run by Symbiota software.
Recent updates: Link to a pdf summarizing changes to this site and/or other items of interest. Links will be to Open Access resources. Notice of changes will be sent automatically to registered users.
Why Symbiota?
Symbiota is open source software that enables natural history collections, including small or poorly funded collections, to share their data. It is an attractive choice because of its ease-of-use, centralized data management, use of images of living organisms, and data visualization tools. Moreover, using it will help students and collections staff learn how to increase the value of their collecting activities and familiarize them with other important resources for biodiversity conservation and management such as GBIF, IPNI, and CoL.
Collection information
Biological specimens have two parts, preserved biological material and data about the specimen. The initial data comes from the collector’s observations. Later, new data may be added but the collector’s observations are critical. Today, collections are making specimen images and their associated data globally accessible. Today’s collectors can help by providing specimens associated with easily ingested data. Symbiota has tools for this as well as digitizing existing collections and for visualizing data becoming available.
Using collection data
Collection data is used in many ways. Symbiota includes tools for constructing dynamic checklists of taxa known from an area, developing distribution maps of one of more taxa, and for creating “taxon pages” that display multiple images and descriptions of taxa together with a distribution map developed from records in the network. Data from a search can also be downloaded and fed into other analytical programs. Users must, however, start by assessing the suitability of the downloaded data for their use, “cleaning”, when possible, critical aspects.
Data – Metadata - Information - Knowledge
These terms can be confusing. Data are objective. A measurement yields one bit of data. Metadata are about what the data represents, s uch as the unit of measurement, what was being measured, etc. Without metadata, measurements have no meaning. Information comes from integrating data with similar metadata from several sources to learn about the possible causes of any changes seen. Knowledge comes from evaluating the consequences of actions taken based on information.
About this site
This website will provide instructions for sharing and using information from natural history collections via Symbiota in ways that will benefit collectors, researcher, educators, policy makers, and the general public.