I came into my museum studies program with an interest in digitizing collections.  I had volunteered on a project photographing butterflies, which introduced me to the possibilities of improving collections access while preserving fragile specimens.  Throughout my classes, sections on digital access always piqued my interest, so when I heard about the opportunity with Connecting Content, I jumped on it.  Connecting Content is a unique and exciting project and, it turns out, exactly the kind of project I’m advocating for with my Master’s thesis.

I’ve been investigating online access to digital collections specifically with natural history museums in mind.  It turns out, most natural history museums don’t do much to make their digitized collections findable by the average person.  Even high profile natural history museums present their digital collections through keyword searches that can be difficult to use, sometimes even for research experts.  This is interesting for two reasons: one, natural history museums do want to encourage interest in natural history.  Two, art museums have been making browsing of their collections websites creative, accessible, and even entertaining for years.  My research is focused on applying user interface strategies from art museum collections websites to natural history collections websites.

So where does Connecting Content fit into all this?  It’s at the forefront of what I hope is a trend towards creative and multidisciplinary collections web presences that seek to engage all types of visitors, not just researchers.  By attempting to virtually re-unite specimens with field journals and published literature, Connecting Content will provide a more complete picture of the process of natural history  research to everyone and a unique window into an exciting field for the general public.  Connecting Content is a pilot study and with a little luck more and more innovative projects like this one will be coming to a natural history museum near you.

The California Academy of Sciences brought in Rachel Sargent as the Fall intern for the IMLS Connecting Content grant.  Rachel graduated from the University of Vermont with a BA in Biology and is now enrolled in the John F. Kennedy University Museum Studies Program.  Her work experience includes managing the neurobiology and microscopy lab at Harvard University and volunteering at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology where she participated in a project digitizing butterfly specimens.  In addition to the Connecting Content grant, Rachel is also volunteering in the California Academy of Sciences Ornithology and Mammalogy Department.

Rachel has spent much of the Fall assisting in the development of the technical specifications for the Connecting Content specimen photography.  She has also scanned the Rollo Beck field notebook.  She is now hard at work photographing the Connecting Content finch specimens.  You can see Rachel in action in the California Academy of Sciences Project Lab, located on the West side of the museum public floor.

Rachel in the Ornithology and Mammalogy collection room.

Follow the progress of our IMLS-funded Connecting Content grant.

The California Academy of Sciences Library was awarded a 3 year IMLS National Leadership Grant and is working with partners at Missouri Botanical Garden, Harvard University Botany Libraries, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology Library, the New York Botanical Garden and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. The project involves the digitization of field notebooks and natural history collections and the generation of metadata for these items to enable linking of content.