It Takes a Community:

Collections Digitization at the Milwaukee Public Museum

Jen Zaspel

(MPM VP and Academic Dean)

Alyssa Caywood

(MPM Collections Informatics Manager)

Julia Colby

(MPM Invertebrate & Vertebrate Zoology Collections Manager)

Chris Tyrrell

(MPM Botany Research Curator)

It takes a community to support digitization

• Scientific/academic communities
• Lexicon/Metadata/Taxonomy working groups
• Institutional staff (IT, Facilities, Marketing, Education, etc)
• Volunteers, interns, students–and when possible–paid project assistants to help DO the work
• Grants, donors, institutional funding

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How the Digitization community has helped MPM

• Grant funds (particularly NSF & IMLS)
• Resources: workflows, procedures, equipment lists, taxonomy lists (BIG THANKS to iDigBio)
• Workshops & training for skills building
• Relationships w/other institutions (TCNs, collaborations, networks)
• Providing students & volunteers new ways to work w/collections

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THANK YOU!

MPM Collections Digitization

• 1977-2000s: Collections Depts used various digital org tools for collections data + analog methods: SAS, Excel, Access, Cumulus, etc.
• ca. 2004 MPM received an IMLS grant:
• Anthropology card catalog data transcribed and imported into KE EMu (2005-2006)
• Some (<10%) History collections catalog data was transcribed and imported
• 2010-2013 IMLS Typewriter Conservation Grant
• 2013 Botany data imports from existing csv files (subcollections)
• 2013-2015 IMLS Silurian Fossil Digitization*
• 2015-2017 Challenge Grant/ Wisconsin Biodiversity**
• 2016-2019 NSF LepNet*
• 2018-2021 IMLS Ordovician Fossil*
• 2019-2021 Community Archiving Workshop*
• 2019-2024 NSF Terrestrial Parasite Tracker*

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*Thematic Collections Network (TCN) or multi-institution collaboration

**Private donor support

TIMELINE

Collections & Research received Challenge Grant funds

• Collection Managers & Curators’ goals:
• Develop sustainable rapid digitization workflows (not grant-dependent)
• Involve the public in the digitization process
• Share what is developed internally & with museum community
• Initial Focus: WI Biodiversity specimens (invertebrates)
• Grant funds were used to:
• Hire a Collections Digitization Project Manager (1 year)
• Purchase a portable Digitization capture station and image processing station
• Outreach efforts (Member events, WeDigBio)

TIMELINE

The Project Manager hired had prior experience on the MPM IMLS Typewriter and IMLS Silurian Fossil projects.

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Short term tasks (1-2 years)

• Develop workflows to digitize collections (data capture, barcoding, imaging.)
• 2016 WI Crayfish (specimens stored in ETOH)
• 2016-2017 WI Bees (pinned Apidae)
• 2017-2018 WI Freshwater Mussels (dry)
• Produce workflow documentation.
• Integrate crowdsource transcription into the workflows.
• Train staff, interns, and volunteers to use equipment and workflows.

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These projects ran simultaneously to the NSF LepNet Grant project.

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TIMELINE

TIMELINE

Institutional Digitization Development

2016 Digitization Policy Development

• Committee created to research & write MPM Collections Digitization Policy
• Policy approved by Board

2017-2022 Digitization Core Committee & Digitization Department

• Standards established for image files
• Development of documents shared across departments to standardize imaging & data entry procedures
• Expanded application of workflows & procedures on digitization across all collections depts
• Collections informatics provides support for both grant-funded and in-house digi work

2022-present Digitization Infrastructure Planning Group

• Unofficial successor to the Core Committee (C&R and IT members)
• Discuss near term & long term institutional infrastructure needs for digitization, collections data, scientific research, etc.

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TIMELINE

Experimental In-House Digitization Projects

• 2016 Roger Kuehn Lepidoptera Collection
• Task: develop workflow for newly accessioned collections
• Main work supported by interns; end of project imaging completed by volunteers
• 2018-2020 Barcoding Tests-Mammals and Entomology collections
• Task: figure out workflows to expedite barcoding all collections
• Test groups: Mammals study skins & subset of pinned insect collections
• Work supported by the digitization volunteer group (~5-6 regular folks) who were flexible and happy to help with whatever thing we thought up next.
• 2020-2021 History Catalog Ledger Remote Transcription
• Remote volunteer project during COVID lockdown
• Provided data for basic EMu records to support inventory projects

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TIMELINE

We took lessons (& volunteers) from one project to build the next.

WI Crayfish

Freshwater Mussels

WI Bees

Kuehn Lepidoptera

WORKFLOWS

WORKFLOWS

WHAT TRANSCENDS DEPARTMENT SILOS

• Photography Methods (& equipment!)
• Equipment managed by Digitization Dept allows it to be shared across depts
• Project Management & Tracking Methods
• Ex. Task Tracker developed for LepNet has been modified and used for TPT, History Bridge Plan, and Devonian projects
• Equipment Lists & Vendors
• PERSONNEL!!
• Most curators & collection managers are open to non-specialists as project assistants, transcription help, photographers, etc.
• It’s both pragmatic AND means that we’re lucky to have retained cross-trained staff as well as provided interns & volunteers opportunities to work with new collection types

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WORKFLOWS

CROWDSOURCING

Transcription 2016-2018

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• WI Crayfish
• October 2016 WeDigBio event
• WI Bees
• Roger Kuehn Lepidoptera Collection

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What we learned:

• How fun the crowdsourcing community is!
• Not all collections/data are a good fit.
• Transcription can be FAST, but–
• Cleaning & importing data is challenging to make time to do.

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CROWDSOURCING

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Sustainability: Taxonomy & Data

TPT Taxonomy Resource Hub: https://github.com/njdowdy/tpt-taxonomy

or https://bit.ly/TPTresourceHub

RECENT DELIVERABLES

• Taxonomic name lists (fleas, ticks, mites, lice)
• Expert’s contact information

Sustainability: Taxonomy & Data

GloBI How-To: https://www.globalbioticinteractions.org/how-to or https://bit.ly/GloBI-how

• Oranganized info, instructions, links on data extraction
• Community input/suggestions doc

RECENT DELIVERABLES

Sustainability: Management

• Written by Dr. Nick Dowdy
• Python Script
• Current vs needed digitization rates
• Images, slides, vials, transcriptions

Digitization Progress Reports: https://bit.ly/TPTreports

RECENT DELIVERABLES

Sustainability: Management & Knowledge Sharing

• Basic digitization workflows
• Real collection examples & protocols
• Improve the wheel - don’t reinvent it…

BugFlow: https://entcollnet.github.io/BugFlow/ or https://bit.ly/BugFlow

Just some of the BugFlow team:

RECENT DELIVERABLES

Current Projects

• History Bridge Plan

Data Digitization, Inventory, Barcoding, & Packing

• IMLS Devonian Fossil Digitization*

Data Digitization, Barcoding, & Photography

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*Collaboration with the Field Museum of Natural History

RECENT DELIVERABLES

• 40 collaborating institutions, led by Morton Arboretum.
• MPM leads consortium-wide, novel intern pipeline for students underrepresented in STEM fields.
• Digitize woody specimens, including wood & fruit/seed/nut collections, for entire western hemisphere.

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SAPLING:

tree Species of the Americas: a Project Leveraging Informatics, Natural history, and Geography

FUTURE DIGITIZATION

Thank You!

Erika Tucker (project manager): emtuckerlab@gmail.com

Jen Zaspel (project lead): zaspelj@mpm.edu

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Contact us about TPT:

• Christine Rundblad & John Brander
• Lynn Chappy