Digitization Workshop and Best Practices Development Session for the Texas Oklahoma Regional Consortium of Herbaria (TORCH) Texas Tech University, 8-10 April 2011

为期3天的会议、数字化研讨会和最佳实践会议将于2011年4月8日至10日为德克萨斯州和俄克拉何马州的36名植物研究收藏(草本植物)馆长举行。这次活动将加强TORCH(德克萨斯州俄克拉荷马州地区草药联合会)收藏网络的业务基础设施，并将对标本馆长进行数字化方法和网络技术方面的培训。这次活动预计将产生三个主要成果：1)加强TORCH的组织功能，以协调地区草药机构之间的数字化工作；2)参与活动的馆长和学生在生物多样性信息学工具、数字化技术以及涉及自然历史收集的数据共享和成像的国家倡议方面的实践学习；以及3)为TORCH社区制定最佳实践标准。这次研讨会将使标本馆长做好准备，使之成为国家生物收藏数字化倡议的区域节点。由旅行津贴支持的研讨会出席是必要的激励，以确保区域馆长和研究生提供足够的投入，从而为未来的火炬活动带来最大的支持和承诺。为标本数字化和数据动员制定协作管理计划和工作战略势在必行，这样TORCH才能为美国生物收藏资源/网络综合收藏联盟等联邦倡议做出贡献。德克萨斯州和俄克拉何马州的350万个植物标本中包含的数据的数字化和共享计划，将大大增加这些数据对生物学家、生态学家、资源管理者和国家和国际政策制定者的综合价值。

A 3-day meeting, digitization workshop, and best practices session will be held from 8 to 10 April 2011 for 36 curators of plant research collections (herbaria) throughout Texas and Oklahoma. This event will strengthen operational infrastructure within the TORCH (Texas Oklahoma Regional Consortium of Herbaria) collections network and will train herbarium curators in digitization methods and cybertechnologies. Three primary outcomes are anticipated from this event: 1) Enhancement of the organizational functionality of TORCH to coordinate digitization efforts among regional herbaria, 2) Hands-on learning among participating curators and students in biodiversity informatics tools, digitization techniques, and national initiatives involving data sharing and imaging of natural history collections, and 3) Development of best practice standards for the TORCH community. This workshop will prepare herbarium curators to collaborate and function as a regional node for national biological collections digitization initiatives.Workshop attendance supported by travel stipends is a necessary incentive to ensure sufficient input from regional curators and graduate students, thus engendering maximum support for and commitment to future TORCH activities. Development of a collaborative management plan and work strategy for herbarium digitization and data mobilization is imperative so that TORCH may contribute to federal initiatives such as the U.S. Biological Collections Resource/ Network Integrated Collections Alliance. The planned digitization and sharing of data contained in the 3.5 million herbarium specimens in Texas and Oklahoma will increase substantially the synthetic value of these data for biologists, ecologists, resource managers, and policy makers at the national and international level.