When the reality of successful funding for your digitisation project sets in and it is time to start spending, there are countless decisions that need to be made. Equipment needs to be purchased, staff need to be hired and protocols need to be developed. In 2016, the biological collections of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada received funding (Government of Canada Budget 2016) for digitisation of their accessions, which include roughly 18–19 million preserved plant, insect and fungal specimens, as well as living fungal cultures and germplasm. Goals include the creation of virtual collections and digital inventories as well as specimen imaging and data capture. Now half-way through the funded project, the logistical opportunities and challenges associated with the digitisation of these diverse collections will be presented including short-term and long-term solutions, digitisation workflows and some lessons learned.

natural history collections, digitisation, imaging, data capture, lessons learned

Heather Cole

Biodiversity_Next 2019