Development of a Novel Image-based Web Portal for the Colorado State University Herbarium

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

The Colorado State University Herbarium is the oldest and third largest herbarium in the Southern Rocky Mountains. The herbarium is a major depository of collections made by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program, the Nature Conservancy, the Colorado Natural Areas Program, and the National Parks Service units in Colorado. All 94,420 specimens will be imaged and databased. Specimens will be made publicly accessible online with the Deep Zoom format for seamless viewing of high resolution images in Microsoft Live Labs Pivot. Species and specimen attributes will be added to the interface so that the general public may use it in the manner of an interactive key for the Colorado flora together with magnified images of microscopic traits necessary for species identification. The herbarium's collections have been systematically annotated as part of an upcoming state-wide flora and are an ideal reference collection. Together with the flora, the Pivot-based interface will enable students, the general public, land managers, researchers, and botanists to more effectively and efficiently identify vascular plants in Colorado. The database will document current floristic diversity and help track changes caused by development, climate change, and/or introduction of new species. The Pivot-based interface with Deep Zoom will be generally applicable, and made accessible to other natural-history collections.