A Collaborative Effort toward an Integrative Web Portal at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract

The University of Wisconsin (UW) Madison's five main natural history collections (Anthropology, Entomology, Geology, Herbarium, and Zoology) have joined together to begin digitizing our collections and disseminating information online via an integrated web portal. This two-year project, currently beginning its second year, is the result of a UW2020 grant, "Development of the Wisconsin Integrated Biodiversity, Human, and Environmental Specimen Portal." The first objective of the grant is to initiate, or assist with current, digitizing efforts within each collection. This step includes photographing, inventorying, and/or cataloging specimens and either entering new records or updating existing records in collection-specific databases. The remaining objective is to design and implement a web presence (in the planned format of a web portal) to allow the ability to search a limited number of fields from all of the collections' databases. This step, currently still in the planning stages, involved hiring a temporary employee to liaise between all of the collections, perform the web design, and write the background scripts to pull needed data from each collection's database program. This presentation will outline the grant goals and progress to date by each collection, although the primary focus will be on the successes and limitations in the Anthropology collection.