Critical Upgrades to Specimen Storage and Computerization for the Oregon State University Ichthyology Collection

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The quarter million specimens in the Oregon State University Ichthyology Collection (OSUIC) have supported research on fish biodiversity and conservation since 1935. Recently a lack of expansion space, an outdated card-based cataloging system and insufficient finances have stymied the OSUIC's growth and prevented researchers around the globe from accessing the collection's holdings easily. This project will solve these problems by 1) installing mobile compact shelving that will increase shelf space by 43% and 2) creating an online, remotely accessible collection database. These critical upgrades will allow the OSUIC to archive new specimens and ensure that it continues to serve as a center for research on fishes from the Pacific Northwest and beyond for decades to come.In addition to upgrading the collection's infrastructure, this project will engage precollege students with some of the most spectacular OSUIC specimens in hands-on Discovery Units, provide training and financial support to undergraduate and graduate students, and develop a new online Systematics of Fishes course. In that course, photographs of specimens of more than 400 species will generate a virtual teaching collection, thereby replicating the laboratory-intensive experience of the current on-campus offering. By its conclusion, the project will offer students, scientists and the public vastly improved online access to information in a biodiversity library that has until now been accessible only to scholars behind closed doors.