Cover Image

Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia

Natural history museum collections are the most important sources of information on the present and past biodiversity of our planet. Most of the information is primarily stored in analogue form, and digitization of the collections can provide further open access to the images and specimen data to ad...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Song-Quan Ong, Nurzatil Sharleeza Mat Jalaluddin, Kien Thai Yong, Su Ping Ong, Kooi Fong Lim, Suhaila Azhar
Format: Article
Language:English
English
Published: Wiley online library 2023
Subjects:
QR1-502 Microbiology
QR1-74.5 General
Online Access:https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/1/ABSTRACT.pdf
https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/2/FULL%20TEXT.pdf
https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10212
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
id my.ums.eprints.36809
record_format eprints
spelling my.ums.eprints.368092023-09-14T02:20:07Z https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/ Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia Song-Quan Ong Nurzatil Sharleeza Mat Jalaluddin Kien Thai Yong Su Ping Ong Kooi Fong Lim Suhaila Azhar QR1-502 Microbiology QR1-74.5 General Natural history museum collections are the most important sources of information on the present and past biodiversity of our planet. Most of the information is primarily stored in analogue form, and digitization of the collections can provide further open access to the images and specimen data to address the many global challenges. However, many museums do not digitize their collections because of constraints on budgets, human resources, and technologies. To encourage the digitization process, we present a guideline that offers low-cost and technical knowledge solutions yet balances the quality of the work and outcomes. The guideline describes three phases of digitization, namely preproduction, production, and postproduction. The preproduction phase includes human resource planning and selecting the highest priority collections for digitization. In the preproduction phase, a worksheet is provided for the digitizer to document the metadata, as well as a list of equipment needed to set up a digitizer station to image the specimens and associated labels. In the production phase, we place special emphasis on the light and color calibrations, as well as the guidelines for ISO/shutter speed/aperture to ensure a satisfactory quality of the digitized output. Once the specimen and labels have been imaged in the production phase, we demonstrate an end-to-end pipeline that uses optical character recognition (OCR) to transfer the physical text on the labels into a digital form and document it in a worksheet cell. A nationwide capacity workshop is then conducted to impart the guideline, and pre- and postcourse surveys were conducted to assess the confidence and skills acquired by the participants. This paper also discusses the challenges and future work that need to be taken forward for proper digital biodiversity data management. Wiley online library 2023 Article NonPeerReviewed text en https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/1/ABSTRACT.pdf text en https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/2/FULL%20TEXT.pdf Song-Quan Ong and Nurzatil Sharleeza Mat Jalaluddin and Kien Thai Yong and Su Ping Ong and Kooi Fong Lim and Suhaila Azhar (2023) Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia. Ecology and Evolution, 13. pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10212
institution Universiti Malaysia Sabah
building UMS Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Malaysia Sabah
content_source UMS Institutional Repository
url_provider http://eprints.ums.edu.my/
language English
English
topic QR1-502 Microbiology
QR1-74.5 General
spellingShingle QR1-502 Microbiology
QR1-74.5 General
Song-Quan Ong
Nurzatil Sharleeza Mat Jalaluddin
Kien Thai Yong
Su Ping Ong
Kooi Fong Lim
Suhaila Azhar
Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia
description Natural history museum collections are the most important sources of information on the present and past biodiversity of our planet. Most of the information is primarily stored in analogue form, and digitization of the collections can provide further open access to the images and specimen data to address the many global challenges. However, many museums do not digitize their collections because of constraints on budgets, human resources, and technologies. To encourage the digitization process, we present a guideline that offers low-cost and technical knowledge solutions yet balances the quality of the work and outcomes. The guideline describes three phases of digitization, namely preproduction, production, and postproduction. The preproduction phase includes human resource planning and selecting the highest priority collections for digitization. In the preproduction phase, a worksheet is provided for the digitizer to document the metadata, as well as a list of equipment needed to set up a digitizer station to image the specimens and associated labels. In the production phase, we place special emphasis on the light and color calibrations, as well as the guidelines for ISO/shutter speed/aperture to ensure a satisfactory quality of the digitized output. Once the specimen and labels have been imaged in the production phase, we demonstrate an end-to-end pipeline that uses optical character recognition (OCR) to transfer the physical text on the labels into a digital form and document it in a worksheet cell. A nationwide capacity workshop is then conducted to impart the guideline, and pre- and postcourse surveys were conducted to assess the confidence and skills acquired by the participants. This paper also discusses the challenges and future work that need to be taken forward for proper digital biodiversity data management.
format Article
author Song-Quan Ong
Nurzatil Sharleeza Mat Jalaluddin
Kien Thai Yong
Su Ping Ong
Kooi Fong Lim
Suhaila Azhar
author_facet Song-Quan Ong
Nurzatil Sharleeza Mat Jalaluddin
Kien Thai Yong
Su Ping Ong
Kooi Fong Lim
Suhaila Azhar
author_sort Song-Quan Ong
title Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia
title_short Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia
title_full Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia
title_fullStr Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Digitization of natural history collections: A guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in Malaysia
title_sort digitization of natural history collections: a guideline and nationwide capacity building workshop in malaysia
publisher Wiley online library
publishDate 2023
url https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/1/ABSTRACT.pdf
https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/2/FULL%20TEXT.pdf
https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36809/
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10212
_version_ 1778162800920625152
score 13.223943

Similar Items