EMu and the Natural Sciences at Museum Victoria

1. EMu and the Natural Sciences at Museum Victoria Dermot A. Henry Manager, Natural Science Collections Museum Victoria, Melbourne

2. Thanks yous! • Entomology: Ken Walker, Kristy Hoath, Sarah McCaffrey, Peter Lillywhite, Catriona McPhee. • Terrestrial Vertebrates: Wayne Longmore & Rory O’Brien • EMu team: Nancy Ladas & Alex Chubaty

3. Museum Victoria • Museum of Natural Sciences, Indigenous Studies, Social History, and History of Science & Technology

4. Museum Victoria • 1854 National Museum of Victoria • 1986 Amalgamation of the Science Museum of Victoria and the National Museum of Victoria • 2000 Melbourne Museum opened • Immigration Museum and Scienceworks

5. This talk… • Introduction to MV Natural Science collections & EMu • Some recent EMu projects • Web outputs

6. The collections: The real thing!

7. Collections • Diverse collections of zoological and geological specimens which underpin MV Research • Research conducted by MV Research Curators, CMs, associates, students etc • Providing access to collections to facilitate other researchers (from within Australia and overseas) • Distilling the stories from research for the general public, eg exhibitions, public programs • Promoting science

8. Natural Science collections • Over 15 million specimens • 3.2 million collection management units • 1,061,706 units on database

9. Natural Science collections Reference e.g. Types Systematics Diversity reflecting morphological differences, geographic distributions etc

10. 1982 Museum obtains Titan/Texpress 1996 Commence development of EMu 2000 Commencement of transfer of Texpress to EMu 2007 Completion 48 individual Texpress databases transferred! History of EMu

11. Natural Sciences had some resistance to Emu − preference for flat screen approach of Texpress Over time, changing mindset − viewing EMu as data management tool not solely a collection management tool History of EMu

12. Registration Project • ≈ 2004 an explosion in the need to electronically register data at specimen level for research-based and other biodiversity mapping initiatives • Examples include: • MV’s Bioinformatics and Pest and Diseases Images Library web projects • International Global Biodiversity Information Resource and Australian Zoological Collections Online. Atlas of Living Australia • Specific external research initiatives which have provided funding for MV to register collections • MV needed to reassess baseline registration methodologies to meet this need

13. Registration project • Overcome the mindset that the collections were too big to register • Over 15 million specimens • 3.2 million collection management units • Acknowledge the ‘risk management’ value of registrations.

14. Registration project • Commenced 2004-2005 • Acknowledgement that increased registration rates are not possible with current staffing resources in collections • Purpose: to register the majority of the State Collections, including a substantial backlog of unregistered collection material • ‘Backlog’ considered to be material acquired before 2004

15. Registration project • Tackle smallest collections first • Define a tight minimum dataset • Do not attempted to exhaustively capture all information • Enhance data appropriately (eg latitudes and longitudes to facilitate mapping projects

16. Registration Project • 2004/5 Recruited 3 ‘specialist’ registration officers • Additional funding acquired from Entomology grant funds − employed 3 additional staff • Tackle smallest collections first and specific subsets of Entomology • First year approximately 98,000 records

17. Zoology: Fish • Approximately 430,100 specimens • Stored as 44,000 lots • 2004/5 completed approx 11,000 records captured

18. Zoology: Herpetology Vertebrate • 77,000 specimens • 3,000 records captured

19. 73,000 specimens Skins, mounts, skeletons, eggs and nests Approximately 5,000 captured. Egg collection excluded Zoology: Birds

20. Zoology: Mammals • Approximately 40,000 specimens • Skeletons, skins and display mounts • 8,000 captured

21. Trichoptera data Google mapping • 70 000 records

22. Trichoptera data. Google mapping

24. Registration Project • Approximately 1/3 of NS Collections data captured. Individual disciplines completed: • Birds, Mammals and Herpetology • Ichthyology • Natural Science art • Mineralogy, Meteorites, Tektites • Subsets of large collections of Marine invertebrates and Entomology collections

25. Registration Project • Averaging 74,000 NS records per year to June 2010. Cost of approximately $2.35 per record • Increased data set from 615,638to 1,061,706 • Demonstrated that, with appropriate funding, major inroads to the backlog could be achieved

26. Palaeontology collections • Approximately 4 million samples • 250,000 vertebrates • 100,000 plants • 3.5 million invertebrates • 14,000 Type specimens • Palynology slides from Victorian oil wells

27. Palaeontology registration • Setting priorities • Capture all paper registered specimens

28. Tissue Bank • Registration and barcoding of samples

29. Entomology Type project • 2.5 million specimens • 20,000 Type specimens (approx 3,500 ‘dry’ primary types) • Largest aquatic insect collection in Australia

30. 3-year project to image capture approximately 3,500 primary types Reduce the need to transport fragile specimens for loans Entomology Type project

31. Entomology Type project • Employed specialist staff to take high resolution images using multilayering techniques and computer combination of images • Up to 60 images per a final view. Detailed depth of view • Next iteration will allow use of ‘zoomify’ on Web to see detail

32. Entomology Type project

33. Entomology Type project

34. Entomology Type project 2952 types completed into Emu

35. Entomology Type project Available on Web

36. Entomology Type project Has increased requests for info on Types but often high res images are suffice

37. Bird egg registration and image capture project. • Set priorities for staff – free them up! • Set targets • Include image capture of all specimens

38. Egg registration

39. Egg registration • 20,000 clutches • Data entry completed in 2 years • Data set suitable for development of egg identification website

40. Acquired November 2009 Ian McCann was a keen wildlife and botanical photographer Amassed a collection in excess of 20,000 35 mm Kodachrome slides Many published images McCann image collection

41. McCann image collection • Ian McCann passed away in July 2003. His family were keen for his collection to go to appropriate institutions for not-for-profit use • July 2009, Museum acquired zoological image component – 5,400 images mainly Victorian fauna, approx 300 to 400 families

42. McCann image collection • 1450: Reptiles and amphibians • 980: Mammals

43. McCann image collection • 1860: Birds • 400: Insect, Crustaceans, Molluscs, worms and Butterflies • 690: Spiders

44. McCann image collection • All slides catalogued in EMu • All slides digitised (high resolution) • All images attached to slide catalogue record and to taxonomic records Red-capped Robin (male)

45. McCann image collection

46. McCann image collection

47. Catalogue and taxonomy modules

48. McCann image taxonomy module Coral snake

49. McCann image collection Available on the web via the taxonomic module Fantastic on line resource!

50. Redevelopment of Science and Life Galleries completed in Oct 2010 Collections on-line priority for 2010 / 2011 for Natural Sciences Collections on-line