UF hosts scientists to discuss the digitization of data

More than 130 scientists gathered at UF this week to work toward a yearslong goal of digitizing one billion biological specimens.

The Florida Museum of Natural History, located at 3215 Hull Road, and iDigBio, which stands for Integrated Digitized Biocollections, are hosting the annual National Science Foundation’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Summit, which started Thursday and lasts until today.

Scientists are visiting from across the U.S., Japan, England and Denmark, said Paul Ramey, the assistant director of marketing and public relations for the museum.

“The museum is one of the leaders of the iDigBio project, along with Florida State (University),” Ramey said.

iDigBio is funded by the National Science Foundation. Its goal is to get information on biological specimens online and available to the public, said Larry Page, the director of iDigBio. The project is housed in the Florida Museum.

The museum has 22 million specimen in its collections from as far back as the 1700s, including some now-extinct creatures.

“You can’t just go out and look at them,” Page said. “The live ones are at the zoo, the dead ones are here.”

iDigBio already has more than 105 million specimen’s information available online, but it is working on a decadelong project to digitize one billion specimens. They expect to complete the project by 2021, Page said.

“The most exciting part of the Summit is the progress that each funded institution is making,” Page said.