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Collec&ng   quan&ta&ve  metadata   by  coun&ng  all  specimens  in  a   herbarium   Peter   Desmet  

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Quan&ta&ve  metadata  are  cool!   A  very  colourful  presenta&on  by   @peterdesmet  #tdwg  

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Index  Herbariorum   350,000,000   herbarium  specimens  worldwide  

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25,000,000   digi&zed  and  published  (=  7%)   GBIF  Data  Portal  (Andrea  Hahn)  

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What  do  we  know  about  the  other   93%  ?  

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Descrip&ve   metadata  

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Metadata  registries   bit.ly/IH-­‐herbaria   biocol.org  

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Collec&on  name  +  code   Address   Staff   Subcollec&ons  

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Es&mated  size   Based  on  what?   Actually  counted?  

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Geographic  scope   Pre^y  well  described   How  distributed?  

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Taxonomic  scope   Vascular  plants  +  Bryophytes?   Families?   Genera?  

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Can  we  get  some  real  numbers?  

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Vascular  plants  specimens   are  organized  in   Folders  

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What  if  we  counted  the  folders?  

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And  the  #  of  specimens  per  folder?  

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?  $   How  much  would  it  cost?  

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?  days   How  long  would  it  take?  

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What  we  did  at  the   Marie-­‐Victorin   Herbarium  (MT)  

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Move  an  es&mated  900,000  specimens  

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More  space   Reassign  350  -­‐>  640  cases  

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New  classifica&on   Flowering  plants:  APG  III  (2009)   Ferns:  Smith  et  al.  (2006)  

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Coun&ng   Digi&zing   Data  cleaning   Publishing  

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Coun&ng  

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Average  age  >  60  

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1  summer  

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826  work  hours   110  work  days,  22  work  weeks  

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Digi&zing  

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4  volunteers  

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Paper  -­‐>  Excel  

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Data  cleaning  

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2  volunteers   1  professor   1  informa&cian  

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Correc&ng  errors   Typos,  missed  genera,  dubious  counts  

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New  classifica&on   Assigning  families,  correc&ng  genera  

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Format  data  

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Publishing  

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1  informa&cian   (me)  

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Google  Fusion  Tables   bit.ly/mt-­‐inventory-­‐gk  

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Darwin  Core  Archive  via  IPT   bit.ly/mt-­‐inventory  

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Metadata  =  EML   Descrip&ve  metadata  

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Occurrence  dataset   basisOfRecord  =  PreservedSpecimen  

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1  record   1  folder   1  genus   1  loca&on   in  1  tray  

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#  specimens   individualCount  

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What  do  we   know  now?  

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22,298   folders  

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628,664   specimens  

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2/3   of  previous  es&mate  

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21.5%   digi&zed  

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380   families  

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82%   of  known  families  

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5,298   genera  

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6   con&nents  

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Combina&ons   Rubus  specimens  from  Canada?   Yes:  2921,  in  trays  A236-­‐07  –  A238-­‐04    

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Useful  for  us   In-­‐house  management  &  planning   Digi&za&on  priori&es  

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Useful  for  others?   Loans   Demand  driven  digi&za&on?  

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Granularity   Genus,  con&nent  -­‐>  Useful  for  climate   change  &  invasive  species  studies?  

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Global  picture   Really  350  mil.  specimens?   How  distributed  over  genus  &   con&nent?  

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Cost  /  Time  ?  

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158   work  days   Publishing  1%   Data  cleaning  21%   Digi&zing  8%   Coun&ng  70%  

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5,740  $   total  salary  cost   Publishing  7%   Digi&zing  0%   Coun&ng  37%   Data  cleaning  56%  

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110  specimens  =  1$   100  &mes  cheaper  than  full  digi&za&on  

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3,200,000  $   All  350  mil.  specimens  

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138  h     1049  h   Staff  5,740  $   Volunteers  0  $   88%  by  volunteers  

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16,230  $   10$  wage  for  “volunteers”  +  staff  salary  

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9,000,000  $   All  350  mil.  specimens  

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340  years   1  person  at  7.5h/day,  5  days/week,  no   holidays  

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26  days   One  person  per  herbarium   3,400  herbaria  -­‐  Index  Herbariorum  

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?!   Tricky  to  extrapolate!   What  about  non-­‐mounted  specimens?   How  useful  is  this  data?   Is  there  a  metadata  repository?  

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First  step   Towards  some  real  numbers  

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Thanks!   bit.ly/mt-­‐inventory   Peter   Desmet