Type Specimen Catalogue
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National Herbarium of New South Wales
Catalogue of Type Specimens 		RBG Home Page
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About the catalogue

The herbarium

The National Herbarium of New South Wales holds a collection of about one million specimens representing all branches of the Plant Kingdom. About 30% of this collection is electronically recorded. The Type Specimen Catalogue is a subset of this database, recording about 5000 of the estimated 20,000 type specimens held. This catalogue is currently being enhanced by the addition of digital images of the types.

Image capture

Specimens are being photographed with conventional equipment, onto 35mm colour transparencies using high definition film (currently Fujichrome® Velvia™). Transparencies are scanned with a general-purpose 35mm slide scanner (Nikon® Coolscan LS2000™) at an image size designed to produce an approximately life-size image when displayed on the most commonly used equipment (a 14" monitor at 800x600 resolution).

Scanned images are stored as TIF files on CDs. Images for web display are reprocessed using Adobe® Photoshop® to produce a full-scale and a thumbnail images, both appropriately adjusted for color balance and sharpness. Both images are stored as highly compressed JPEG files, with compression set to yield a final full-scale image with fully readable label text. A more comprehensive discussion of digital imaging of herbarium specimens with links to other imaging sites is provided by the New York Botanical Garden.

The first group to be imaged and included is the eucalypt group, with about 1400 images now available. This milestone has been achieved through the dedicated volunteer work of Harry Brian.

Project personnel