Project Goals

The NSF Museums Project will demonstrate the value of integrated museums databases by creating a portal to search and view specimen records from all participating museums (MICHUMMZUMMPUMMAA) using a single query.

To populate this database, the project is databasing and digitizing tens of thousands of specimens. Botanical, zoological, and a subset of paleontological and anthropological specimens will be phographed, while another subset of paleontological specimens will be 3D scanned.

Specimen quantity estimates:

  • MICH: Total number of specimens to be processed: 20,000 (all vascular plants)
  • UMMZ: Total number of specimens to be processed: 34,265 (>30,000 birds, 10 fish, ~50 insects, 450 mammals, ~300 (?) mollusks)
  • UMMP: Total number of specimens to be processed: 300 slide scans and digital stitching of photomicrographs; about 2,500 lots of early invertebrate samples.