New working peers at the Herbarium!

Hello all,

The fall semester started some weeks ago and it has been very busy already! I am taking 14 credits this semester, doing an undergraduate research and keeping up with work at the Herbarium!


Luckily, two new women were hired to work at the Herbarium which makes it more pleasant to work in! I worked pretty much by myself all summer and it is refreshing to have people to talk to and to share the work with!

The new workers are Abigail (Abbie) and Adriane and both of them have good work ethics and are organized. They are also always willing to help me, which is great.

One week before school started, I introduced Abbie to the Herbarium and taught her how to database the cabinets we had left (take note of the numbers of specimens of each species we have). Remember, Ashli was working on that earlier in the summer? She was able to database cabinets 4 to 9, and Abbie is continuing this work (we have 14 cabinets full of specimens)! I also taught her how to annotate specimens!

Just a reminder on why this step is necessary

I need to know how many specimens of each species we have, so then I can name verify each species (see if the scientific name was changed, or if a certain genus changed families or if a family name changed) to then produce annotation labels and annotate the specimens!

Here it is a small summary of the process:

(1) Database Cabinets
(2) Name verify species for name changes

(3) Produce the right amount of annotation labels
(4) Annotate specimens or correct the names

(5) Organize cabinets according to Edward G. Voss’ Michigan Flora 2nd edition which contains 3 volumes

(6) Re-folder specimens
(7) Produce Genus and Specimens labels for the folders using a label maker
(8) DIGITIZE!!

I have posts written in each of these topics, so you can always go back and check them in more detail!

Adriane has worked at the Herbarium before for a long time! So, she already knew many details about the Herbarium. She is our mounting specialist and she is working on mounting specimens from classes taught by Anna. She also helps me with annotating specimens when our working times overlap!

Lately, I have been working on annotating specimens from Cabinet 3 (YEAA, Cabinets 1 and 2 are fully annotated and organized!!) and name verifying some other cabinets! I am leaving in December, when I graduate, and I have to finish name verifying all cabinets before that because it was a hard and very time consuming process to learn!

Overall, it has been a pleasure working in group. I feel that the 3 of us are doing a good job on communicating where we are at and what our next steps will be.

Thanks for reading!

Emilie