Development and Support for MUSE, a Microcomputer-based System for Managing Natural History Collections

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Dr. Julian Humphries is a fish biologist and museum curator at Cornell University. He has developed a database software system called "MUSE" for managing museum collection data with microcomputers, and more than twenty natural history collections (mostly vertebrate) around the world have adopted the system. Dr. Humphries proposes to continue development of the software system by adapting it to new hardware platforms (Macintosh and UNIX machines), and establishing inter-site connections using Internet. Dr. Humphries also plans three workshops to introduce newcomer museums to collection computerization, to train other curators and collection managers in the use of MUSE, and to develop community-wide data standards for collection databases. The MUSE software system has had great impact on the community of vertebrate biologists by making data readily available from museum collections. Access to these data are having important impact on research in evolution, biological diversity and global climate change, and the community's reliance on these data will expand and accelerate. The proposed extension of the MUSE Project will benefit the research community in tangible, immediate ways.