Written by Dr. Sarah Phillips, Research Leader Digital Collections, Kew Herbarium
The Herbarium at Kew houses an estimated 140-185,000 dried plant specimens of the UK flora. These preserved specimens provide information on which plants occurred where and when, and as such are an important source of information on the identity, distribution and occurrence of plant species within the UK. At the moment the majority of these specimens are stored away in cupboards at Kew, only available to researchers who come to London and visit the collection.
We aim to make this information more accessible through digitisation and are therefore seeking volunteers to help with the task of imaging the UK herbarium sheets using specialist photographic equipment. Volunteers will be supported and trained in selecting, handling and photographing herbarium sheets. The images will then be sent to herbaria@home an online crowdsourcing website developed and managed by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) where anyone can assist by transcribing the label data. The data and images will also become available through the Kew Herbarium Catalogue and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) ensuring the data can be accessed by researchers in the UK and all over the world.
If you are interested in volunteering please contact Sarah Phillips Sarah.Phillips@Kew.org for further details.
