The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History has received a three-year grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to catalog, database and assign geographic coordinates to specimens in its collection of recent invertebrates.
This prestigious grant was awarded to 179 out of the 500 applicants who applied. The Sam Noble Museum was the only museum in Oklahoma to be awarded for this specific program.
After a yearlong application process, the Sam Noble Museum received $149,206 to catalog about half of the holdings of the invertebrates collection, said Janet Braun, acting curator of the collection.
“To try and database as much of the natural history specimen materials in the United States right now is a new program through the National Science Foundation,” Braun said.
The electronic database will provide information to the international scientific community, people from individual state agencies and the general public, Braun said.
Physical specimens are always available to researchers, Braun said. Researchers are welcome to visit onsite, or the specimens can be loaned out to the institution for their research.
A catalog of the specimens will be provided at the Sam Noble Museum’s website and other websites, she said.
“Starting with specific groups of organisms, we are going to focus on dragonflies, beetles, and we have the largest riffle beetle collection in the world,” Braun said.
The group working on this collection includes Braun, another project manager, two undergraduate students and a full time worker.
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Pinchfist 1 year, 8 months ago
Sweet! Now let's see some more frequent traveling exhibits too and you're off to a great start for the decade.