<
https://www.nsw.gov.au/ministerial-releases/nsw-herbarium-goes-global-state-of-art-platform>
"People from around the world can now access digital records of more than one
million plants with the launch of the first searchable image archive from the
National Herbarium of New South Wales.
The Herbarium is located at the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan and holds
specimens from across the Pacific region for critical biodiversity, ecological,
and evolutionary research studies.
Over the past five years, scientists from the Botanic Gardens of Sydney have
archived and digitised the entire collection, including more than 800 specimens
collected by botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on Captain Cook’s first
voyage to the Pacific in 1770.
The new platform is the most comprehensive searchable image archive in
Australia, and the first and largest mass digitisation of a natural history
collection undertaken in the southern hemisphere. Around 4,000 images were
taken daily to transform the plant specimens into a high-resolution image.
The digitisation process has already revealed new discoveries of Australia’s
botanical science history, including specimens collected by celebrated
Indigenous painter Albert Namatjira and illustrations by renowned botanical
illustrator Margaret Flockton.
The collection of high-resolution images has been uploaded to Amazon Web
Services (AWS), who are providing free storage as part of the AWS Open Data
Sponsorship Program. The program covers the cost of storage for publicly
available datasets, supporting community access to the records for the first
time.
People can visit the Botanic Gardens of Sydney Herbarium search portal and
search for plants using scientific name, collection date, collector and other
criteria. The search result will reveal the images of the plants and collection
data associated with the specimen."
Via Esther Schindler.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
