The Big Data Revolution in Natural History Museums

Natural history museums often evoke the musty whiff of the Victorian era of expeditions, trophy hunting and display, but any recent trip to a museum will show visitors an updated view of the world. However, the real revolution has occurred behind the scenes in biodiversity informatics that marries natural history collections and cutting edge software and tools to access and make accessible a rich repository of information about our planet that provides a window into our past and present. As the world and the climate rapidly changes, the need for natural history collections is more important than ever. The information on species, their natural history, distribution and health is critical for understanding their persistence and vulnerability in areas and thus essential for predicting their response to change. New webportals, tools in mobile applications and social networking allow citizen scientists to 'peek behind the glass cases' and participate in data access and dissemination.

Speaker: Michelle Koo, Biodiversity Informatics & GIS Staff Curator at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), UC Berkeley