Support for Computerization and Maintenance of Botanical Systematic Collections at the California Academy of Sciences

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Dr. Frank Almeda is the Senior Curator of the Botany Department in the California Academy of Sciences, and he has designed a significant computerization program for the department. Dr. Almeda proposes to establish a computer linkage to the national computer network Internet for the Botany Department and the entire Academy. In so doing, the Botany Department will join several other large California herbaria in an ambitious program of database development. The University Herbarium at the University of California at Berkeley is implementing the Specimen Management System for California Herbaria (SMASCH), a networked computer database of California plant specimens. The computerization program designed by Dr. Almeda will allow the Academy's important plant collections to become a part of the SMASCH database as it develops. The proposed plant database initiative has implications beyond the collections at the California Academy of Sciences. Natural history museums and herbaria are establishing world-wide networks of information sharing, and these computerized information resources will revolutionize research on biological diversity. Research scientists in earth sciences, geography, economics, as well as biology will draw on these databases for information that is presently unavailable. Future generations of scientists will depend on data resources such as these as they investigate global climate change, evolutionary history, and other integrative research questions.