Digitisation / Cataloguing of non-textual objects: Development of an open source database on the plant collections from Mongolia (Mongolian Republic) held at the Herbarium of the University Halle-Wittenberg

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Röser
• Subject Area: Evolution and Systematics of Plants and Fungi
• Term: from 2012 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 203863771

The Herbarium of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg harbours the worldwide third largest collection of plants from the Mongolian Republic (about 10,500), superseded in specimen number only by those in Ulaan Baatar (Mongolia) and St. Petersburg (Russian Federation), and is one of the nationally and internationally most used parts of our herbarium. This important collection is scientifically and technically in top condition and stored in a separate room. To make it online accessible and searcable, we propose to completely database and geo-reference the voucher information of the specimens. They are frequently associated also with published vegetation science releves. We intend to use an established, computer-system-independent database platform hosted by the Museum of Natural History in Vienna (Austria), which is successfully in use already in other ongoing projects of our herbarium, such as a type specimen project currently supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (USA) in the frame of the `Global Plant Initiative´ and linked with other important international databases as `Tropicos´ or `JSTOR Plant Science´ (see also our own homepage . A digit(al)isation of our Mongolian plant collection is not envisaged by this proposal.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Uwe Braun