ANN ARBOR—Images and descriptions of thousands of specimens of fish, mammals and fungi local to the Great Lakes region are now available for viewing and researching on the Web.

“Flora and Fauna of the Great Lakes Region” draws from objects selected from the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. The collection includes more than 16,000 digital images and 115,000 data records from the Fish and Mammal Divisions of the University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology and the Fungus Collections of the University of Michigan Herbarium, made available electronically by the University Library. The project reflects an international effort to put natural history collections online. Through this collaborative effort, funded by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, disparate collections from the museum divisions are combined to provide access to data about the natural history of the Great Lakes region—an area of collecting strength and strong regional interest.

“It was our goal to make natural history information, images of representative specimens, and scientific records available to students of all ages,” said Jerry Smith, curator of fishes in the Museum of Zoology. “Students and teachers can use these maps, notes, and images to test their own ideas about Great Lakes biodiversity and its response to environmental change.” Collection records provide detailed information about when and where specimens were collected. The databases list both scientific and common names and include records for specimens collected in the Great Lakes region from the 1850s to the present. Digital photographs taken specifically for this project accompany many of them.

Also included are maps of the locations in which fish and mammals have been recorded, as well as some of the field notes drafted by the scientists who collected the specimens. The field notes span much of the twentieth century and provide unique and detailed records of the conditions and surroundings where specimens were collected, and insights into the work of field biologists. In the mammal collections, images of skulls are displayed in fine detail. A scrapbook composed of maps of the state of Michigan is keyed to anecdotal reports of species in the state over time (primarily from the 19th and early 20th centuries).

The fungus collections contain a database of an estimated 25,000 specimens, accompanied by photographs. One of the highlights is “Krieger’s Watercolors of Fungi,” a collection that illustrates the “art of science.” It is a series of more than 300 watercolor images created by Louis C. C. Krieger, a mycological artist who assisted Dr. Howard A. Kelly, a Baltimore physician and amateur mycologist, as he developed a private library. Kelly donated the watercolors to the University of Michigan in 1928. Eleven 20th century monographs of fungi species have also been digitized for the project, and are fully searchable. The fish collections comprise a broad range of resources including specimen images, field notes, distribution maps, species descriptions, and catalog records.

Links among related records assist the user in navigating the collections. “Undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, curators, hobbyists, and users from around the world now have 24-hour access to this rich collection of images and museum data that was previously unavailable to most,” said Christie Stephenson, project director, University Library Digital Library Services. To learn more about the “Flora and Fauna of the Great Lakes Region” and to access the collections, visit: www.lib.umich.edu/programs/greatlakes/