CSBR: Natural History: Implementation of an Integrated Database Platform for the University of Michigan Biological Collections

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This project highlights a new effort at the University of Michigan (UM) to consolidate its rich and diverse natural history museum collections (over 16 million specimens in Botany, Paleontology, and Zoology) both physically and virtually into an accessible resource for research, teaching, and public outreach. The University has committed to build a new, shared facility for the three museums as well as to adopting a common database platform across the different museums. These activities will enhance data accessibility and improve integrative research and educational projects across all collections. The specific goals of this project are to upgrade and consolidate more than 60 disparate databases by linking together for the first time specimens, notes, and other forms of data from three major multidisciplinary expeditions that were based at UM over the past two centuries. These include a) the first natural history survey of Michigan in the 1830s; b) the first circum-global scientific expedition by the university led by Joseph Beal Steere in the 1870s; and c) a series of expeditions to the Himalayan region in the 1930s and 1940s led by Walter Koelz that amassed a huge collection of birds, plants, and cultural and anthropological artifacts. An important more recent digital asset at the Museum of Paleontology is a series of 2D and 3D images (including animations) that document large mammal bones such as mammoths and the layout of the sites where they were discovered. These illustrate the kind of ongoing international research that is being carried out at the UM museums and will be incorporated into the museum management system. The improvements planned will increase the value and utility of these collections for basic interdisciplinary research and the preparation of students in a variety of STEM fields.All objects and data associated with the three multidisciplinary expeditions, including actual specimens, original field notes, imagery, and additional metadata will be digitized and then databased using the KE software Electronic Museums data management system (KE EMu) that is being adopted as the common database platform for the university's museums. This will provide previously unrealized cross-collection and cross-museum access to all information derived from these collection events, and it will form the basis for creating specific web sites for each of the expeditions. These will be designed to provide new information for the public and research community, including historians and social scientists, as well as for student training and education at the K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels (five graduate and ten undergraduate students will receive specific training under the grant). The first natural history survey of Michigan from the 1830s is particularly significant because it is the only one that documents the original pre-settlement conditions of parts of the state, but its composition has not been systematically assessed. Overall, the project will significantly broaden the outreach, educational and research, value of its combined natural history collections by making them more accessible and interconnected through a common collections management system. It will foster much greater collaboration among the museum units on campus and will allow the university to produce integrated search results across all of its collections. For additional information about the University of Michigan natural history museums and their collections, consult the museum websites at http://herbarium.lsa.umich.edu/, http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ummz/, and http://www.lsa.umich.edu/paleontology/.