It is our pleasure to announce the Specimen Digitization Tools and Practices Workshop at the Botany 2012 Conference. The workshop is designed to introduce current and future biological and paleontological specimen collections staff to resources and workflows that can lead to greater efficiencies in the digitization of their collections. The workshop is organized by iDigBio, the National Resource for Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections. It will be held from 8–5 on Thursday, July 12, the day after the conference at the conference facility. A dinner for workshop participants will follow.
Up to 25 participants will be supported by reimbursement of up to $500 to attend the workshop. Those interested in attending should describe three things in an email: (1) the status of digitization of biological or paleontological specimens at your institution (including total number of specimens and percent databased, imaged, and georeferenced), (2) your role in digitization of biological or paleontological specimens at your institution, and (3) your degree of interest in presenting a short talk (5-10 minutes) on your experiences with digitization. It is not necessary for every participant to present a talk, nor is it necessary for all participants to be currently employed as staff at a biological or paleontological specimen collection. Graduate students are particularly encouraged to apply, but a clear connection should be made in the email between your career objectives and the topic of the workshop. If you are interested in presenting a short talk, please specify the topic of your presentation in <200 words in the email. Topics could include particularly efficient digitization workflows, ad hoc solutions to digitization bottlenecks, lessons from digitization coordination across multiple institutions, etc. Further directions regarding reimbursement will be sent to the successful applicants in late March.
Send the email to Cathy Bester via the form at
https://www.idigbio.org/contact/Cathy_Bester by Monday, March 19, 2012. Notification of selection by the committee will be made by March 23.
The workshop is designed to include a mix of new perspectives on digitization with hands-on presentations of production-version tools, presentations of ad hoc innovations in digitization, and discussions.
iDigBio has also organized a symposium entitled “Building a High-Resolution, Specimen-Based Picture of Life: Possibilities and Challenges” for the Botany 2012 conference. It will be held on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 11. More details on the symposium will appear later on the conference website (
http://www.2012.botanyconference.org/).
iDigBio is the National Resource for Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (ADBC) funded by the National Science Foundation. The mission of iDigBio is to develop a national infrastructure that supports the vision of ADBC by overseeing implementation of standards and best practices for digitization; building and deploying a customized cloud computing environment for collections; recruiting and training personnel, including underserved groups; engaging the research community, collections community, citizen scientists, and the public through education and outreach activities; and planning for long-term sustainability of the national digitization effort. For more information, visit
http://www.idigbio.org/.