iDigBio: Sustaining the digitization, mobilization, accessibility, and use of biodiversity specimen data in U.S. museum and academic collections

Integrated Digitized Biocollections (idigbio.org) at the University of Florida (UF), Florida State University (FSU), and Arizona State University (ASU) is the national coordinating body for the sustained effort to digitize, and make available online, the vast amount of information in the nation's biodiversity collections, which may contain up to 1 billion specimens. For biological specimens, information digitized include names of species, localities and dates of collection, digital photographs, sound, video, and 3-D models created from a variety of sources.

This community digitization effort was catalyzed by NSF’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) program via Thematic Collections Networks (TCNs), groups of institutions that digitize specimens to address a major research topic such as the relationship between agricultural crops and insects or the impacts of invasive species on natural ecosystems. iDigBio assists in coordinating activities of the TCNs by facilitating development of standards and workflows for digitization of specimens and related information, providing cyberinfrastructure resources to enable long-term preservation of digital data, promoting novel and traditional uses of collections data in research and outreach, and working with the collections community to plan for the long-term sustainability of the national effort and the resources it has produced. The availability of digitized information about specimens greatly enhances the ability to conduct research on biological diversity and to address some of the most fundamental questions in biology.

Over the past ten years, the national effort to digitize information in the nation's biodiversity collections has been significantly advanced by the activities of iDigBio. Collaborations with data providers and users have been developed, goals and priorities defined, best practices related to digitization identified, and global collaborations with biodiversity data aggregators established.

Cyberinfrastructure resources, including a national search portal, have been provided. These community-driven activities have led to improved digitization practices, increased involvement in digitization and training, and adoption of instruments and informatics tools that improve the efficiency and scalability of digitization and research workflows in all types of biodiversity collections. iDigBio works with staff in more than 926 collections in 317 institutions distributed across all 50 states.

Communication among stakeholders to increase access to collections data has been established through workshops, webinars, and the use of social media. Since 2011, iDigBio has sponsored attendance of 16,768 participants from 1,034 institutions to 430 workshops, webinars, symposia, and events that targeted digitization-related topics. iDigBio has ingested 1,651 record sets containing 128 million specimen records and 41 million media records.

All data ingested are indexed to enable queries and other types of index-based access. Searches for data can be done through a Web-based graphical interface or through programmatic APIs. Search and analytical tools enable users to mine diverse data such as taxonomy, location, images, traits, and vocalizations.

During this award period, iDigBio to continue its successful strategies with an increasing emphasis on data improvement and use in research and outreach and to incorporate such rapidly developing technologies as artificial intelligence and machine learning in biodiversity data integration. iDigBio is recognized as an essential resource for information on biodiversity and digitization. As the scientific and societal benefits of validated collections data are realized, digitization will become a common and sustained practice in natural history collections.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.