EDIT WP5 Platform for Cybertaxonomy

Few years ago, we have developped a querying on exported data from BG-BASE and direct link to images.
Many specimens have been encoded in BGBase and more than 20.000 of them have been digitized.
Here is a link to a short demo: http://www.br.fgov.be/tap/query.html

Since several months, another colleague is developping a brand new project: "The Virtual Herbarium"

The technology used to implement the project: PHP, PostgreSQL, MySQL.
The search criteria are: Genus, Species, Country, Type specimen, Collector, Barcode number etc...
The pictures required for the virtual herbarium are thumb-nails with a width of 100 pixels and main pictures with a height of 2000 pixels.
We use standardised file names to distinguish thumb-nails from the main picture. All the pictures are jpeg (but allthe orginal pictures are tif, 600dpi and 24 bit-colors).

Click here: http://www.br.fgov.be/RESEARCH/COLLECTIONS/HERBARIUM/advancedsearch.php

Quentin is also testing how we could use Google maps and our geolocalised herbarium specimens to present localisation information on the Internet.

Interesting application

Wikispecies is an ambitious taxonomic project to record all of life! Most of you will have used a Wiki on the Internet get information on all kinds of subjects. Wikispecies is specifically for recording the taxonomy of living things.

A full explanation can be found at http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies:About. Wikispecies is free and can be edited anonymously. I strongly encourage you to use and contribute to this project, particularly those of you describing new species. Not only will you will be helping other scientists, but it will also give people greater access to your work.

Need more informations? Please contact
Ir. Jean Van Onacker: jean.vanonacker@br.fgov.be (IT Manager)
Dr. Alain Empain: alain.empain@br.fgov.be (Bryology, Bioinformatics)
Dr. Quentin Groom: quentin.groom@br.fgov.be (Botany and Information Technology)