Notes from Nature - Invertebrate Time Machine

Decades ago, before the digital revolution, California Academy of Sciences Invertebrate Zoology curators created what was at the time a "cutting edge" analog catalog card system, modeled on a library's card catalog, to make specimen data easily searchable to scientists using the CASIZ collections in person. Specimens in this large (currently approximately 800,000 containers) collection of preserved-for-science marine invertebrates were assigned a unique catalog number (Cat. no.) and all of the data related to their collection were typed manually on 3 X 5 index cards and filed by number. Duplicates of each card were stored inside specimens' containers, but since this data was never captured digitally it is not yet unavailable to global scientists. We need your help to mobilize this important "hidden" data!

This card label contains data for a starfish specimen collected by trawl at a depth of 4000 feet off of southern California during a 1904 expedition aboard the ship US Fisheries Commission Steamer Albatross.

Scientists and conservation managers routinely use museum data like those above to inform a huge variety of research topics, including:
• Evolutionary studies
• New species descriptions
• Ecological and population genetic studies
• Climate change research
• Biogeographic studies
• Biodiversity surveys, species lists, field guides
• Documentation of invasive species
• Food safety, human health, and disease tracking
• Pollutant/toxicology studies
• Parasitology
• Conservation assessments

We continue to discover new ways of tapping these historical collections in our search for solutions to local and global problems.

This is where you come in! You can help mobilize this data for marine science and conservation use by transcribing label data for online access.