From Plant Press, Vol. 26, No. 1, January 2023.
In September 2022, Sylvia Orli participated in the BioDigiCon, a recently rebranded iDigBio summit focusing on digitization and mobilization within the natural history collections. She gave a lightning talk, "A Fully Digitized Herbarium - Workflows to Keep Up 100%," with Ingrid Lin (Botany) and Nathan Anderson (Smithsonian Digitization Program Office) describing the US Herbarium efforts to maintain a fully digitized status for the herbarium's ever growing collection. In addition, in her detail capacity as Digitization Coordinator for NMNH, she participated in the workshop, "Digitization Coordination: Combining Project Management & Digitization Efforts to Benefit Collections, Big and Small," which explored the concept of a centralized digitization program in natural history institutions. The BioDigiCon occurs annually to bring together the global natural history collections communities to discuss digitization topics.
Sylvia Orli’s BioDigiCon lightning talk, "A Fully Digitized Herbarium - Workflows to Keep Up 100%":
At a request from Jennifer Brundage (Smithsonian Affiliations), Alice Tangerini traveled to Northfield, Vermont on November 8-10, 2022, to present a lecture and display artwork at the Sullivan Museum. The Sullivan Museum at Norwich University is the only affiliate partner in the Northeast and had a current exhibition on one of their alumni, William Brenton Boggs. Boggs was on the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition and the U.S. National Herbarium has collections from that expedition. Tangerini’s talk, “Botanical Illustration, Then and Now,” included a history of illustration in publications mentioning the changes in media used and a synopsis of collecting specimens for herbaria, preparation of herbarium specimens, and illustration techniques. She included the story of the series of cactus illustrations made for the Whipple Pacific Railroad Survey of 1854 and how they were discovered in the herbarium. She emphasized the importance of keeping records of illustrations and how they add to our history in the sciences. The talk was well attended with an overflow in another room and recorded for later viewing. Tangerini brought full size copies of illustrations to the lecture and was able to have a small display of the Department of Botany’s Art Collection.
On December 1, 2022, Gary Krupnick gave an invited webinar, "A Natural History Approach to Protecting Pollinators" for the Let's Talk Gardens webinar series hosted by Smithsonian Gardens. Pollinators are critical to environmental health, our nation’s economy, and our food security. But many pollinators are in serious decline. Krupnick's presentation provided insight into the natural history of plant-pollinator interactions and how biologists, gardeners, and community scientists can help protect plants and their pollinators.
Gary Krupnick’s Let's Talk Gardens webinar, "A Natural History Approach to Protecting Pollinators":