Bringing Schuster, Standley and Co. Into the Third Millenium: The Field Museum's 180K Bryophyte and Lichen Conversion & Digitization Project

Field Museum Of Natural History, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

An award has been made to the Field Museum of Natural History under the direction of Matt von Konrat to convert 180,000 specimens of bryophytes and lichens from herbarium sheets to archival storage packets, which will better protect and preserve the specimens for research. The collection of bryophytes at the Field Museum is one of the largest and most significant scientifically, and this project will urgently address storage problems posed by having specimens of small plants mounted on larger herbarium sheets. In addition to re-housing the specimens in better containers, the project will capture data from specimen labels for inclusion in an online, searchable database. The project will involve a large number of college students as interns, as well as a high school student, all of whom will participate in the re-housing and database work.