Collection Computerization in the Division of Birds, Field Museum of Natural History

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The research collections maintained by the Division of Birds at the Field Museum of Natural History represent a significant portion of the world's avian specimen material. The scope of the collections in terms of species representation (80% of the world's species in the skin collection, 20 % in the skeletal collection and 15% in the pickled collection), the recency of the majority of the specimens and the superb state of curation make the collections at the Field Museum a premier resource for evolutionary biologists. With the changes in the world's avifauna (both in distribution and absolute numbers) brought about by man's activities and the increasing difficulty in obtaining permits for further collecting, the value of the Museum's specimens is incalculable. To protect the collection better and make information about it more accessible to the scientific community, this project will start computerization of the collection data. Computerization will improve the staff's ability to answer collection inquiries, will vastly improve access to collection information for visiting professionals and other potential users, will allow the staff to determine what geographic areas and what taxa are poorly represented in the collection, and will increase collection security by enabling the staff to know at all times where each specimen should be located.