Bishop Museum

The Bishop Museum in Honolulu will digitize the Francis G. Howarth and Frederick D. Stone Hawaiian Cave Arthropod Collections, which includes nearly 40,000 specimens and associated records. Project activities include hiring a Digitization Technician and student interns to work with the Entomology Collections Manager, purchasing digitization equipment, purchasing new jars and vials to rehouse the specimens, and collaborating with Howarth and other cave biologists to identify specimens. The museum will enter the specimen data and field notebooks into a biological collection management system. The museum will develop a series of Collection Standard Operating Procedures to include protocols for digitizing field notebooks, imaging and data capture, and collection plans. A checklist of species will be generated from the collection database and the 40,000 digitized specimens will be properly housed, labeled, and stored in the main collection area.