North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences will incorporate three orphaned collections into its scientific collection to provide public access to a timeline of marine fish collection efforts over the last century in rapidly changing marine environments. The project will address the conservation needs of the specimens and associated paper records from the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences, Stockton State University, and Western Carolina University. The museum will purchase equipment and supplies to ensure the long term storage and handling of digital and paper data, and will hire 15 interns to assist with project activities. The project will also offer training opportunities for students and educators, and enable citizens to aid in the digitization effort through a virtual transcription portal. The project will result in the incorporation of approximately 160,536 specimens into the museum's fishes collection, with global access to all associated data across multiple online data portals.