An herbarium is the home for botanical research specimens within the natural history collections community. Herbaria traditionally house specimens, and related items, from across all areas of “botany,” both living and fossilized. In today’s view of life, this includes plants, fungi, brown algae, red algae, and some bacteria and amoeba. The biological diversity across the tree of life in any given herbarium may be exceptionally high, and complicated to manage.

This webinar will provide an overview on herbarium collections. This includes covering the broad range of taxonomic organisms that may be housed in a traditional herbarium and what some of the storage options are for their many forms. Some basic schemes of organization and what a taxonomic revision means for collections will be discussed. We will briefly touch upon assessing material for incoming accessions and basic permitting guidelines. A list of some of the critical resources for understanding and maintaining these collections will be provided and gone over, and digitization will be touched on briefly. Lastly, we will talk about collections risk related to pest infestations and suggestions on integrated pest management strategies.

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The statements and opinions expressed by panelists, hosts, attendees, or other participants of this event are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of, nor are endorsed by, the American Alliance of Museums.