CBRC Digital Repository: storing and viewing 3D objects, for science!

Abstract

The Center for Biological Research Collections (CBRC) at Indiana University (http://www.indiana.edu/~cbrc/) is a consortium of research collections including botany, zooarchaeology, and paleontology collections. This group is digitizing biological specimens to make them available online for teaching and research. Some of these specimens will be digitized as 2-dimensional photographic images while others, particularly bone specimens, are being digitized in 3D to allow for manipulation and visualization in a standard web browser. The Libraries are teaming up with CBRC to help store these collections in a variety of file formats, along with accompanying metadata. The CBRC uses a pre-existing metadata management system called Specify (http://specifysoftware.org/) and we are working to bring the metadata in that system together with repository software we use (Hydra/Fedora) to ensure these digitized items can be archived and managed for the long-term, as well as made discoverable and accessible online. Join us to learn about this work, see some 3D content in action, and have some fun with science!