Topics
The main topics this web site will address are biodiversity data sharing, biodiversity education, and using biodiversity data.
Why digitize natural history collections?
Digitization enhances the reputation of a collection, its institution, and those who work in it in addition to building a valuable scientific resource. It frees the data hidden in the specimens, allowing it to be combined with data from other collections and other sources in ways that produce new insights. OpenHerbarium and OpenZooMuseum include tools that demonstrate these benefits. They also make sharing data with GBIF easy. This gives collections a global presence and enables Bionomia to summarize the contribution individual collectors and identifiers have made to the world’s biodiversity knowledge.
Using the OpenSites
Barkworth is building a series of open access PDF files on entering data into the OpenSites and how to search them for records meeting specific criteria, generate herbarium labels, create distribution maps, checklists, and develop taxon pages. The files available will be listed under Instructions. They can (and should) be translated into other languages. We would be happy to share such translations on this site. They may use English for technical terms and another language for more general terms. The site can handle different scripts/alphabets.
Biodiversity education
Studying biological diversity requires how species are named and how to determine the appropriate scientific name for a species one does not know. Asking someone else is one approach, but it is of limited benefit. Learning to use and create standard resources for doing so is critically important but is often neglected, often because there are no suitable resources. The OpenSites include tools that make developing such resources easier.