Digitizing the zoological collections

The fast development of information technology, database systems and the use of the Internet strongly facilitate the digitization and mobilisation of biological data, e.g. on the voucher specimens of museum collections and from faunistic samplings. At the natural history museum Karlsruhe voucher collections have to be managed and accessed through the database system IMDAS-Pro in the framework of an information system for all museums in Baden-Württemberg (MusIS), facilitated by the library service centre of the state (BSZ). Since 2011 Florian Raub is employed to adapt the bulk of organismic data to this system and conform it with other database systems for scientific use (evaluation, exchange of data, mobilisation through GBIF). During this process the consistency and quality of the data is checked and improved by georeferencing collection localities and standardizing taxonomic names (building or using thesauri) and other (meta-) data. To date the following zoological collections are digitized and migrated/imported into IMDAS-Pro:

• Nematoda: 79 records
• Collembola (springtails): 4533 records
• Protura: 6 records
• Oribatida (oribatid mites): 6002 records
• Araneae (spiders, from Germany): 4554 records
• Aves (birds): 4663 records
• Mammalia (mammals): 20032 records (5005 small mammals, 2946 bats)