For more than 50 years the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (ASDM) has been a recognized authority on the natural history of the Sonoran Desert region. It has introduced more people to the flora, fauna, and habitats of the region than has any other institution in the Southwest. The ASDM Sonoran Desert Digital Library greatly expands the museum's ability to bring this knowledge to an even larger audience through our searchable, multimedia web-based catalog of the plants, animals, minerals, landforms, and landscapes (biotic communities) of the Sonoran Desert region. (The Sonoran Desert region encompasses the Sonoran Desert and all contiguous biological communities including the Gulf of California and its islands.)
The ASDM Sonoran Desert Digital Library, in its current phase of development, provides detailed information about the specimens in ASDM's physical museum collection. Visitors to this site will presently find high quality images, complete taxonomic data, and an easy to use interface that permits searching and browsing for species using scientific nomenclature, English common names or Spanish common names. Additionally, excerpts from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum's publication A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert provide supplementary information about many thousands of the species in this repository.
Future Plans for the ASDM Sonoran Desert Digital Library
As the Digital Library enters the next phase of production, visitors will notice an increase in the number of species included on this site. The Digital Library will be adding Sonoran species not present in the museum's physical collection as well as aquatic species from the Sea of Cortez. Continual improvements to the user interface will also make the Digital Library accessible to a wider audience.
In subsequent phases of development, we will introduce interactive multimedia tools for educators and learners, and provide enhanced search features, archival materials, GPS mapping, a Spanish language version of the site, and more!
Project Information
Currently, the project is in its third phase. Phase III, funded by Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), covers the period from October 2007 through September 2009. This phase will build on the infrastructure and procedures established in Phase II for web-publication of the ASDM collections of terrestrial and aquatic species and landscape (biotic community) images of the Sonoran Desert region. The purpose of the project is to preserve comprehensive information resources about the Sonoran Desert region; fill in blanks of online knowledge about the region; and serve the research and information needs of a broad range of audiences, including students, teachers, amateur natural historians, scientists, and the general public. Phase II was developed in partnership with the University of Arizona (UA) Library. ASDM provided all content, and the UA Library provided programming, data hosting, maintenance, and delivery.
The long-term goals of the project are to:
- Develop a comprehensive catalog of authoritative information related to the Sonoran Desert region;
- Create multiple interfaces (both user-interfaces and standard system-level interfaces) that will allow the collections to be accessed in a variety of ways and integrated with other standards-based systems;
- Develop a digital library collection within the context of reusability, persistence, verification, and documentation, and
- develop partnerships that will further enlarge the volume of information available and create new programs to utilize it.
| Phase I |
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Determine scope of Digital Library and form a partnership with the University of Arizona Library.
(completed 11/2004) |
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| Phase II |
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Establish technical/scientific standards-based infrastructure for long-term development and sustainability, using terrestrial species as content.
(completed 9/2007) |
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| Phase III |
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| Use knowledge gained from Phase II to add aquatic species and expand terrestrial collections, enhance user interface, implement metadata harvesting protocols. |
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| Phase IV |
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| Introduce tools for teachers and learners, integrate with major search tools, and add archival material. |
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| Phase V |
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| Develop Spanish mirror-site and infuse GPS mapping. |
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Volunteers
In addition to the time invested by staff at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and at the University of Arizona Library, this project has relied heavily on the generously donated time and effort of a large team of skilled volunteers. The ASDM Sonoran Desert Digital Library could never have been created without the contributions of these volunteers.
- Dan Austin
- Sue Bingemon
- Steve Bless
- Sue Bridgemon
- Jeanne Broome
- Ken Broste
- Robin Clark
- Adele Conover
- Joel Curzon
- Dottie Eakin
- John Flynn
- Maggie Fusari
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- Olga Harbour
- Karen Hawman
- JoAnn Hinchliffe
- Julianne Hurst-Williams
- Margaret Lacey
- Judith Landan
- Marcille Lynn
- Doris Manning
- Barry McCormick
- Shari Montgomery
- Kevin Moore
- Joe Morris
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- Ted Myers
- Jo Ann Overs
- Joe Patronite
- Ron Pellar
- Pam Ryan
- Russell Solsky
- Bob Stevens
- Ginny Strniste
- Libby Sullivan
- Alicia Thomas
- Donovan Wagner
- Alex Yelich
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