CHSC Database

*****************
How to Query the Database
General Notes
Databasing Progress Summary
*****************

How to Query the Database -- 2 ways

1. Consortium of California Herbaria.
California vascular plants only. The specimen database of this organization, based at UC Berkeley, contains records for the California vascular plant specimens from most of the California herbaria that have been databasing their collections. Queries can be made on several data fields, including species, county, collector, and/or geographic locality. A truly elegant site.

2. The Chico State Herbarium.
All of our databased collections (vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens; California and outside of California). This portion of our web site is hosted by the herbarium at UC Davis. Queries can be made by genus or species name only. Such queries obtain data from our non-California collections as well as for our California collections.

General notes.

The Database.
This database has been internet-searchable since 14 October 2001, with new data added regularly as databasing of the collection progressed and as new specimens are added to the collection. All of our vascular plant, bryophyte, and lichen collections are databased, except for several long-outstanding loans and for the backlog of incoming specimens, and have been available for internet searches since 22 August 2008. Databasing has not yet started for our collection of myxomycetes (slime molds -- about 12,000 specimens) and a small collection of macro-algae. Click here for collection statistics. We are interested in your comments and suggestions -- please send them to Lawrence Janeway.

The database used at CHSC was created in MS Access at the UC Davis Herbarium (DAV). DAV has made the database freely available to the herbarium community. The database has been somewhat modified for use here at CHSC, but the basic structure remains intact. Our thanks to the UC Davis Herbarium for hosting the database-querying portion of our website on their web server.

Nomenclature.
Nomenclature and family arrangements for vascular plants generally follows what is presented in The Jepson Manual (Hickman 1993). However, some nomenclature has already been changed to match the upcoming second edition of The Jepson Manual, especially for some genera in Asteraceae and Cyperaceae. Family arrangements for bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) follows that presented for the Bryoflora of North America Project; however, species level nomenclature has not all been updated and may reflect only what appears on the specimen label. Nomenclature and current names for the lichens follows North American Lichen Checklist by Theodore Esslinger.

Determinations.
The herbarium cannot vouch for the identification of any specimens; use your own judgment and knowledge of particular collectors and determiners as your guide.

Annotations.
Queries will draw upon the most recent annotations on each specimen, although the full database does contain the name originally applied to a specimen and all subsequent annotations. Vascular plants not already determined or annotated with the "current name" (according to The Jepson Manual) have been anonymously annotated by the herbarium staff to the current name. Only California vascular plant collections are being systematically referenced this way.

Data Entry.
Label information has been copied as exactly as possible into the database. The only changes made during data entry are minor corrections such as obvious typos and spelling errors, especially in the plant names.

Georeferencing.
Volunteer Bill Carlson has been determining latitude and longitude for our specimens that don't already have this information on their original specimen labels. This information is then added to the database records. The database contains a field that shows which records have thus had latitude and longitude added and which contained this information on their original labels. All latitude and longitude coordinates looked up by Bill Carlson or as part of other herbarium activities are in NAD 1983. Projection (NAD 1927, NAD 1983, or WGS 1984) for coordinates on original specimen labels is usually not known, but is recorded in the database when present. More information about how latitude and longitude have been determined will added here later. To date, Bill has determined latitude and longitude for more than 34,000 specimens (although 6,000 of those have not yet been entered into the database).

THANKS!
To Bill Carlson for his volunteer help with preparing the database template for use here at CSU Chico, for initial set up of the herbarium website, and for getting the database queryable on-line. To Tom Starbuck at the UC Davis herbarium for technical help with the database and for obtaining permission from UC Davis for the UC Davis Herbarium to host the database-search portion of our website on their web server. To the volunteers who are presently entering data for most of the new incoming specimens: Susan Bazell and Cindy Weiner. To the students who have entered data over the years: Jane Hazen, Morgan LoRomer (who entered more records than any other person), Cat Talbot, Erica Bromberg, Anita Joule, Marcella Shuey, Michelle Cederborg, Stephanie Lopez, Jeannie Trizzino, John Rowden, and Lani Heath. To the volunteers who have entered data over the years: Barbara Castro, Bill Carlson, Susan Bazell. To Bill Carlson who is looking up latitude and longitude coordinates for specimens that don't have coordinates. To our initial database committee for making the database most useful, trouble-shooting a data entry protocol, and in general getting the project off the ground: Bill Carlson, Barbara Castro, Lawrence Janeway, with occasional technical help from Ann Willyard. To an early NSF grant to Kristina Schierenbeck, the previous Herbarium Director, that funded the critical first three years of this databasing project, including coordination of student and volunteer data entry, and also doing data entry, by the curator, Lawrence Janeway.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Last updated 8/22/08
by Lawrence Janeway
e-mail

Herbarium Home | College of Natural Sciences | Chico State University
Gateway Science Museum (formerly Northern California Natural History Museum)