For the past few months, we’ve been getting to know (and love!) our new HerbScans— fabulous inverted, large-format scanners—here at the National Herbarium of Canada. They represent a new step toward our goal of capturing and archiving high-resolution images of all our plant specimens, and serving them online to everyone who cares to take a look.
As a start, we’re scanning our 600 000+ vascular plants and macroalgae—the biggest, flattest, lowest-hanging fruit in our botany collection—in hopes that imaging technology will advance sufficiently in the meantime to address our need to efficiently capture microscopic details of our 500 000 tiny, 3D lichens, mosses and microalgae.
The public can already see the stunning resolution of our scans by looking at the large-format prints currently on display at the museum in Flora of the Canadian Arctic. Visitors sometimes can’t help touching the pictures of the plants’ delicate flowers and intricate root systems to make sure they aren’t real!
Why else are specimen images SO fantastic?
1. They reduce the risk. Handling specimens and sharing them by sending them through the mail exposes priceless treasures to risk. It’s worth the risk when it’s necessary, but with images, it’s necessary less often.
2. They are convenient. We can look at many different subsets of specimens without having to open cabinets or find the space to lay them out.
3. Machines like them too. We can use optical character recognition to extract information from the labels for analysis, which could accelerate our effort to database specimen information in the future.
4. You tell us. Digital images allow people all over the world to explore our collection for themselves. Our specimens are routinely accessed by scientists, students, historians, artists and enthusiasts, through visits to the collection or specimen loans. Each has his or her own reasons to be grateful for the chance to share the stories these specimens tell. When our growing database goes live online later this year, it will be like flinging the herbarium door open to the whole world. We’d love to hear about what you find here to fascinate you.
So once we have an image of a specimen, will we still need the specimen? You bet!
1. You can’t extract DNA from an image. Relatively recently in the more-than-400-year history of herbaria, technology was developed that allows us to extract DNA from herbarium specimens, in order to explore the history and nature of plant life. Who knows what technology will develop next?
2. Some features can’t be seen in the image. Researchers still rely on microscopes, chemical reactions, cross-sections, and other tests in order to answer many of their questions. Plus, an image shows only one side of the specimen—what if someone wants to check the other side?
3. Specimens change through time. Over the years, specimens are sub-sampled, annotated and/or restored. A single snapshot can’t capture the dynamic nature and appreciating value of botanical specimens.
4. Nothing trumps concrete evidence. There are moments when all of us (but especially scientists) can’t settle for someone’s word for it. Besides—a picture of a specimen collected by Hudson’s Bay Company adventurers is handy for sharing, but thrilling opportunities to spend time with the real thing will always be a museum specialty.
Our HerbScans hum away every day, with staff and wonderful museum volunteers—bolstered for the summer by spectacular students—at the controls. For now, we’re prioritizing specimens required for our Arctic Flora project and for specimen loans: when better to grab an image of a specimen than when you’re about to let it out of your sight for a few years?
The same growing team also works to properly archive and serve images on the Internet by copying basic information (for example: species name, province of collection, collection date…) from the specimen labels into our database. With enough time and teamwork, we’ll image what 250 years of collecting generated before the existence of scanners and databases, and still keep our stride in building, preserving and sharing the magnificent resources of National Herbarium as we roll on into the future.
Thanks for the interesting update on your scanning project. I came across this while doing some research for a school tour to the George Pegg Botanic Garden in Alberta. George Pegg submitted specimens to the Canadian National Herbarium in the 1960s. I’m excited about how your project may help us look into the national collection.
Thanks for saying hi, and for entrusting these nice specimens to the care of the National Herbarium. We (along with all who draw on the collection!) are grateful for the specimens contributed from all across Canada – especially for those, like George Pegg’s, that have compelling recorded stories of exploration, discovery and contribution to augment their tremendous scientific value. Best wishes for successful fall events and planning for next season!!
I’m really impressed with what you did, congratulations for this great project. I was searching the internet for the best scanners for making herbarium sheets photos. I really like what you did in this project. I’m working on a similar thing in my college herbarium and I’ll be glad if you suggest good scanners for making such a thing and what would be the best setup to do so?
Thank you in advance for your response 🙂
Hi Mohamed, here’s a link for the specs recommended by JStor plant science http://about.jstor.org/sites/default/files/misc/HerbScan.pdf
We use the herbscan units, ordered from Andrew McRobb (herbscan@mac.com)
Prior to purchasing the herbscans (which were pricey), we used essentially the same scanner in a traditional upright configuration, which required that we invert the specimens on the scanner window. The images were good, but it was bad for the specimens and also resulted in more debris and scratches on the window.
Many thanks for the response, I appreciate it. The specs you’re using are of high quality indeed. I’ll try to find my way to get these specs. Thanks again 🙂
Hi Mohamed,
I just came across your interest on the Herbscan. I invented this machine 15 years ago and they are now all over the World. The machine produces very high quality images at 600dpi the on screen image is 6x life size. It’s possible to scan a full A3 sheet at 1600dpi and details at 2400dpi this gives about 16x and 24x over life size images.
Let me know if you need any more information.
Regards
Andrew McRobb
herbscan@mac.com
Hi Mohamed, thanks for your kind words. Your question has been submitted and an answer will be posted as soon as possible.
Thank you very much, I’ve just read the response.
Hi, great project. How many specimens are you able to scan in one day, and do you use a single or multiple scanners?
Just FYI, all the links on your page are broken. Over the last few years I have been slowly researching carrer possibilities for my daughter. At three years old she could clearly say Pachycephalosaurus. At 5 she could tell that Dumbo was an African elephant because he had large ears and a small head. I have no idea where she got this ability. But cataloguing, identify specimens seems RIGHT up her alley.
Thanks Jessica! We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve the broken links issues.
Sounds like your Daughter would fit right into a natural history related career!
Sincerely,
Christina
R&C Blog Coordinator