Author: laurajacklin

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The Digital Collections Programme in a year like no other | Digital Collections Programme

It’s been a year since we had to first close the doors of the Museum due to the pandemic, and like the rest of our colleagues, the Digital Collections Programme (DCP) team have adjusted to the world of video calls, furlough and working from home. Despite these challenges, in 2020 the team imaged 72,000 specimens, transcribed data from 85,000 specimens and georeferenced 17,000 specimens, giving us plenty of progress to reflect on from this challenging year. Over 25 billion data records  have now been downloaded from the Data Portal and GBIF in over 360,000 download events, and remote working has only further highlighted the pertinence of digitising collections and making them accessible to the world. 

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Digitisation on demand: riverflies and redlists | Digital Collections

A guest blog by Robyn Crowther

Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Plecoptera (stoneflies) and Trichoptera (caddisflies) – or EPT for short – are three orders of insects found in freshwater systems across the world. These three key groups are important bioindicators, meaning that their presence and the size of their populations can give us an idea about the health of a freshwater habitat. There are approximately 89,000 specimens in the Museum’s EPT collection, and the Digital Collections Programme (DCP) are in the process of digitising them. Mobilising this data will aid research being undertaken by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), to further our understanding of EPT distribution and assess these species’ vulnerability to extinction.

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Digitisation on demand: mobilising natural history data to address society’s biggest challenges

Access to natural history collections can be added to the ever-growing list of things that became virtual in 2020. Along with virtual coffee breaks, virtual meetings and the ubiquitous virtual pub quizzes, SYNTHESYS+ users are now able to request Virtual Access to natural history collections. 

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Joining the digitisation team – in the middle of a pandemic | Digital Collections

Laura Jacklin is on secondment as the Communications Manager for the Digital Collections Programme. A few weeks in, she shares her first impressions. 

I’ve worked at the Museum for three years, but moving from the marketing team to the Digital Collections Programme has felt like I’ve entered a parallel universe – it’s the Museum, but not as I know it!  

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