by Linda Jo Conn
Dale Kruse, curator at the herbarium at Texas A&M University at College Station, is in need of several volunteers on a regular basis to help with the new National Science Foundation digitization project.
The S. M. Tracy Herbarium has thousands of vouchers that are to be included in the National Science Foundation digitization project. At last count, there are over 360,000 vouchers in the S. M. Tracy Herbarium stored under strict environmental criteria.
Definition:
A voucher herbarium specimen is a pressed plant sample deposited for future reference. It supports research work and may be examined to verify the identity of the specific plant used in a study.
A voucher specimen must be deposited in a recognized herbarium committed to long-term maintenance.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/herbarium/voucher.htm
The National Science Foundation digitization project involves the digital scanning of the vouchers in several selected herbariums in the United States including the S. M. Tracy Herbarium so that the uploaded images may be shared globally with all botanists and taxonomists.
This volunteer effort at the S. M. Tracy Herbarium, located off of East University Drive in College Station, will involve several tasks, including:
- Gluing dried, pressed specimens and their descriptive labels to special herbarium paper to create vouchers.
- Re-gluing and / or re-enforcement of existing vouchers.
- Computer activities such as data entry and digitization,
- and other tasks as may be requested by Dale.
The digital vouchers will then be uploaded into the National Science Foundation digitization project under the scope of the prestigious BRIT Herbarium in Fort Worth.
From there, the ultimate data entry will be accomplished using many volunteers including the existing Texas Master Naturalist volunteer effort project approved for the El Camino Real chapter under the Volunteer Management System (VMS) classification “Citizen Science Transcribing-Selections for BRIT”.
To reach this final stage, tasks must be completed at the S. M. Tracy Herbarium. If you are interested in volunteering on a regular basis at the herbarium, contact:
Dale Kruse
Curator: S. M. Tracy Herbarium, Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology
Lecturer: Department of Range, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management
dakruse@tamu.edu
Herbarium: 979.845.4328
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Nature Along the El Camino Real 