DIGITIZATION OF MUSEUM COLLECTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCE (Invited Presentation)

Museums represent a fundamental tool to understand and preserve Earth’s natural and cultural heritage. The International Commission of Museums estimates that there are at least 55,000 museums in 202 countries and more than 7,000 of them contain natural history collections. The museums that exist today are largely the products of the Enlightenment, with the first examples appearing in the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries. Urbanization, industrialization, exploration, the rise of science, and a growing awareness of the need for conservation and public education led to the founding of many large natural history museums in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. As a result of this timing, most natural history collections were made as the world was being transformed by a burgeoning human population. Ironically, and sometimes intentionally, museums became the undertakers of endangered and extinct species and demolished habitats. Collections grew during the “great acceleration” of the 20^th century and must continue to do so now as the pace of global change quickens. In spite of this need, many museums now find themselves on the endangered list as they see a decline in their numbers of expert curators, collection managers, and the funds to support the collections. The public perception of museums as educational experiences masks their deeper value to human society as the keepers of our knowledge of the world. With a rapidly growing world population, food security, infectious diseases, and invasive species are problems that may find their solution in the genomics of biodiversity housed in museum collections. Cultural collections can revitalize communities by reconnecting them with their heritage. Collections of minerals, meteorites, and fossils are the physical evidence of the planet’s history, climate, biological evolution, and resource base. We have reached a moment where the technology exists to transform natural history collections into scientific infrastructure and knowledge that can play a significant role in the solution of 21^st century problems. In the face of an increasingly digital era, museums are one of the last bastions of the real thing. Ironically, this is why they must digitize their collections. Electronically, the world’s collections can become one world collection.