Herbarium collections are the most important source of scientific information ondistribution of plants in the past and present, also allowing for simulations of future distribution dynamics. Only the herbarium sample reliably confirms the presence of the plant at a specific point of space and time. Herbarium collections and the data they hold are valuable for more traditional studies of taxonomy and systematic, but also for research.

Many herbaria have websites with their virtual collections available online, yet inRussia only a few institutes have such facility, including the Central Siberian Botanical Garden (CSBG).

The herbaria at the Central Siberian Botanical Garden Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (CSBG) were started in 1946. There are two herbarium collections with their own codes and registrations in the Index Herbarium: M.G.Popov Herbarium (NSK)and I.M.Krasnoborov Herbarium (NS). Approximately 800,000 herbarium specimens of vascular plants, mosses, lichens and fungi collected in Siberia, the Russian Far East,Europe, Asia and North America are stored in NSK and NS.

In 2017 a new research group Unique Scientific Unit–Herbarium (USU-Herbarium) was organized in the CSBG for the digitization and management of herbarium collections, in keeping with the international standards, at 600 dpi, with a barcode, 24-color scale and spatial scale bar. Images and metadata stored in the CSBG Database are generated by ScanWizard Botany and MiVappBotany software (Microtek, Taiwan).

Each workstation consists of an ObjectScan 1600 scanner, ScanWizard_Botany software and MiVapp_Botany archiving management software (Microtek, Taiwan). This integrated workstation is characterized by on-top scan design for full-frame focus, a maximum of 1600 dpi (equal to 1 Gigabyte pixels), color CCD, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for specimen label and ID barcode, and image archiving and privileged-account cloud management system. Specimens were scanned and adopted with international standards: the resolution of 600 dpi, a barcode for each specimen, and a 24-color scale.

Specimen label information is recognized and automatically saved under herbarium codes; then, these codes are transformed into specimen serial number in XML format through ScanWizard-Botany. MiVapp-Botany is a web-server system and a specimen image authentication database aiming for an efficient and integrated multi-functional platform. After hierarchical login-based image quality and metadata profile validation by experts, MiVapp-Botany can quickly update the system and make verified specimens accessible for users.

Microtek solution of Herbarium specimen digitization and archive management

More information : ObjectScan 1600

Access the original PDF from CSBG