Digitisation / Cataloguing of non-textual objects: Exploitation of digital collection data at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Frieder Mayer
• Subject Area: Systematics and Morphology (Zoology)
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 203198267

Objects of many museum collections are registered in a variety of different digital formats ranging from text files to specific databases. Unfortunately, this information is usually accessible to a small number of collection staff only. Therefore, the project’s aims are the development and implementation of common transfer tools to achieve data migration to open-access databases as for example BioCASE and GBIF. This will allow external information retrievals of collection data and thus will open new perspectives for the scientific exploration of collections. The procedures will initially be developed for the museum’s mammal collection and will subsequently be applied to other collections of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin housing a total of 30 million objects.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)