Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of Natural History

Archiving and Document Scanning and Database Management for the Wilson Copepod Library

Audrey Riojas. Code: NATHIST-01

We seek an intern to use our high speed scanner to scan and archive copepod information cards. The scanner scans both sides of the card, create and then saves a .jpg file. This file is then renamed following a specific protocol and attached to an Access database. The Wilson Copepod Library was started in the late 1800's by Charles B. Wilson, and is the largest collection of literature dealing with the crustacean group known as copepods in the world. One of the unique features of this library is the copepod species 3x5 card collection of approximately 40,000 cards. There is a card for every known genus and species including synonyms. Each card records who published on the species, the year and what pages referenced this species. It is an invaluable resource, with many cards over 100 years old, these cards have been added to and maintained up to the present. Many of the older cards are becoming brittle and worn and this resource needs to be digitized and converted to jpg's. This unique collection will then be made available on the web at the World of Copepods. The library also has many very old books and papers that need to be placed in archival Mylar envelopes, labeled and filed back into the collection, some of the more delicate older publications will need to be scanned before deterioration of the paper results in its loss. At the end of the project the Genera database on the web will be updated with these pdf files making the information available to all researchers in the world. Credit for this work will result with the student name appearing on the World of Copepod web site.

Requirements: Student should have basic know of the database Access and or Excel, an interest in archival processing, and electronic record management. Knowledge in web development would be helpful but not required.

Assessing the Value of a Science Publication

Code: NATHIST-02

The Institution publishes information about erupting volcanoes in what is currently called the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network. This is available both in black-and-white as a paper copy, and as a pdf file, and it forms a key part of our website where it is typically described as an 'activity report.' We would like to find ways to evaluate the impact of the Bulletin on scientists and research. The process is complicated by the fact that the name of the publication has changed several times since it began in 1968. Furthermore, the publication is 'gray literature' that often gets cited in differing ways in various publications. We are also uncertain whether investigators are clearly citing the data obtained from our website. Still, we'd like to explore how we might establish a reasonable estimate of our "citation index." Perhaps there are other indices that come into play in cases like this, in which case, we would like to learn more about the options for evaluating this publication.

In addition, various experiments and comparative tests can be made using citation indexing techniques. If time is available, the student may wish to explore some of these. Another related publication that we support, Weekly Reports on active volcanoes might also be the subject of a similar evaluation (that publication is just a few years old and only web based).

The results of these efforts will bear upon our planning, direction, and strategy. How important is our work in current research and for future assessments and understanding of planet Earth?

Cataloging Beloniform Fish Radiographs

Code: NATHIST-03

A large collection of radiographs (X-ray photographs) of needlefishes and halfbeaks has been accumulated as part of long-term research on these fishes. Vertebral and fin-ray counts have been recorded with most of these radiographs. The intern will transfer the vertebral and fin-ray counts by species to a database; catalogue and database the radiographs; and organize the radiographs in file cabinets for eventual inclusion in the radiograph file of the Division of Fishes.

Requirements: Experience using Microsoft Excel and interest in fish osteology and/or radiology.

Contributions to the U.S. National Herbarium: Botany Maps

Sara Henry. Code: NATHIST-04

The Department of Botany has a collection of over 10,000 maps dating from the 1860s to the present. Volunteer help has been organizing the maps, photographing them and entering them into a database. Depending on the student's skills and interests, s/he would assist in identifying obscure maps, photographing maps, editing the photos, entering information about the maps into the database and/or cleaning up the database code and web interface. The database is written in Microsoft Access and its primary user interface is in ColdFusion / HTML / SQL. .

Contributions to the U.S. National Herbarium: Ethnobotany Research

Code: NATHIST-05

The Department of Botany is studying the ethnobotany of the border regions of the United States and Mexico, using historical specimens in the United States National Herbarium. A preliminary step is to ascertain all available published, archival and online resources associated with the collecting of ethnobotanist Edward Palmer, the government funded Mexican Boundary Survey (1852-1855) and International Boundary Commission (1911). The Spring Break student would assist the project researcher is assembling and organizing these references and, if time permits, begin the task of extracting specific botanical and ethnobotanical data from these references.

Fantastic Flash Development and Educational Flash Interactives

Code: NATHIST-06

Flash has been called the industry standard for creating high-impact interactive web presentations, and this description fits well for many museum virtual efforts, online exhibits, and educational and informative interactives. As with other museums and public educational institutions, the use of Flash at NMNH has paralleled the industry trends. This Flash based internship opportunity offers 2 optional directions:

a) The firsts is to work with the NMNH IT Web Branch or NMNH Content Providers and implement a small collection of Flash based applications that use the "scribble" coloring book Flash interactive application technology, which basically allows web users to color or draw on a selection of images. The Smithsonian has complete usage rights to these tools and various implementations are already in use at a few other Smithsonian museums. Specifically, the intern(s) would assist in choosing and editing optimal natural history related images (dinosaurs, gems, animals, plants, etc.), work with Flash and code configurations, upload, test, and document the steps and procedures. An example of the "Scribble" Flash application can be seen in use at the Smithsonian's Postal Museum.

b) The second opportunity is to develop a less specific Flash based interactive that would allow the intern to come up with and implement his or her own idea for an educational or edutainment oriented Flash interactive that makes innovative use of our rich online educational and collections content.

Requirements: These opportunities are best suited for candidates with basic or advanced levels of Flash experience, but aspiring Flash developers are also welcome. Moreover, good communication skills, dynamic initiative, creativity, and thorough follow-up with reasonable documentation would also be important to find success with these opportunities.

Glass Sponge Figure Digitization

Cheney Schopieray. Code: NATHIST-07

As with many animal groups, most of the best figures of the anatomy of glass sponges (Hexactinellida) are found in very old literature (100+ years). One of the most important steps in bringing systematics and taxonomy a modern perspective is through the creation of large, widely accessible collections of digital information. This project will consist of scanning and organizing figures taken from classic literature on glass sponges. Glass sponges are found in the deep seas and their skeletal elements (called spicules) are amazingly diverse and beautiful.

Requirements: Attention to detail.

Preparing a List of Plant Species

Code: NATHIST-08

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) calls for a preliminary assessment list of the conservation status of all known plant species. The intern will use specimen data from the U.S. National Herbarium to investigate and analyze preliminary conservation assessments on select plant families.

International Polar Year 2007-2008: Creating 'Oral History' of a Modern Science Initiative

Code: NATHIST-09

International Polar Year 2007-2008 is a major international science effort with over 200 research programs in the polar regions (both in the Arctic and Antarctica) that happens once every 50 years. The project is focused on interviewing some of the key organizers of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 in the Washington area and beyond; reconstructing the history and timeline of international collaboration and planning for this major scholarly initiative during 1999-2005; processing and transcribing taped interviews; processing other historical and archival records for prospective publication by the International Union for Science (ICSU) in Paris, etc.

Requirements: Focus/interest in science history (oral history, archival work, modern international history) at the level of college sophomore/junior or higher; the higher level would open up more individual research options and responsibilities. Students specializing in science/physical sciences/polar studies with a penchant for science history and organization of international/interdisciplinary research are very welcome. Steep learning curve is expected, with a lot of data available for prospective annual/term/honorary/M.S. paper as a follow-up to the project.

Mouse Recuration

Jenica Baty. Code: NATHIST-10

The intern will assist the USGS staff in the Division of Mammals with their recuration of the genus Mus in their newly renovated state-of-the-art compacted storage room within the National Museum of Natural History. Stuffed skins and skulls of over 8,000 specimens need to be individually inventoried against the database and labels need to be updated to reflect currently accepted nomenclature. Help with additional associated tasks, such as the relabeling of drawers and cases to reflect changes is also needed.

Requirements: The ability to climb ladders and lift drawers overhead may be necessary. The volunteer/intern will need to be able to maintain specimens in the proper order and handle fragile specimens very carefully.

Analysis of a Pennsylvanian-age Wetland Flora

Code: NATHIST-11

Incumbent will be working with plant fossils of Pennsylvanian age (about 307 million years old) from a coal mine in south-central Illinois. Objective 1 is to sort the fossils into groups with similar appearance. Objective 2 is to photograph representative members of each group of fossils. Objective 3 is to attempt to identify the fossil groups taxonomically in as much detail as possible.

Requirements: Inquisitiveness. Computer and photographic skills (or desire to learn the latter) a plus.

Internal Navigation and Emerging Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) Development

Code: NATHIST-12

NMNH is among the largest and most complex museums in the world. As the Web Branch moves forward to support the web and online needs of our web visitors and professional associates, we also must provide an efficient internal (intranet) web presence to meet the growing needs of internal communication and information sharing. Traditionally, the museum intranet space as been a disparate collection of various office and departmental spaces without a necessary logical structure that supports the internal museum structure. Efforts to consolidate our intranet resources into the Smithsonian's enterprise wide web content management system (WCM) are already underway. The Smithsonian uses Interwoven TeamSite/OpenDeploy among the most powerful and industry standard WCM systems. The focus of this opportunity is to work with the NMNH IT Web Branch and internal content providers to build and implement a more solid navigational foundation and structure for museum internal resources within the Intranet WCM and assist in the migration of disparate intranet content sources into the new proposed structure and system. Because new NMNH Intranet efforts are moving to CSS functionality, it will also be important to implement a dynamic and changeable format for the navigation that takes advantage of style sheet functionality, from which the NMNH Web Branch has already started to build and manage.

Requirements: This opportunities best suited for candidates with basic or advanced levels of web development and especially those with a good understanding of CSS and those that are interested in working within an industry standard WCM. Moreover, good communication skills, dynamic initiative, creativity, and thorough follow-up with reasonable documentation would also be important to find success with these opportunities.

Wield the Power of RSS

Mouly Kumaraswamy. Code: NATHIST-13

The RSS, the Really Simple Syndication XML format is among the fastest growing internet technologies to distribute, expose, and share online information. It is also growing as one of the best ways to promote museum websites and dynamically changing and rich museum web content. The NMNH Web Branch seeks to take advantage of the established RSS technologies and utilize its power and trend in support of the new NMNH Web Site which is about to be launched in the Spring of 2006 as well as for the promotion of existing websites, exhibits, and other promotional venues. The technical focus of this opportunity is to work with the NMNH IT Web Branch and/or internal content providers and web managers to develop and implement the required RSS XML templates, usage standards, guidelines, and documentation for multiple museum RSS feeds through which to distribute and promote museum information. If necessary, this opportunity would require ample research (if not already known) into RSS industry standards and best practices from which the museum can take full advantage. Since the NMNH web sphere is emerging deeper into the Smithsonian's utilization of Interwoven TeamSite/OpenDeploy, our Web Content Management (WCM) system, this internship opportunity also offers the advantage of gaining valuable experience by working with a powerful and industry standard, enterprise wide WCM.

Requirements: This opportunities best suited for candidates with basic or advanced levels of web development and especially those with a good or aspiring understanding of XML and RSS and those that are interested in working within an industry standard WCM. Moreover, good communication skills, dynamic initiative, creativity, and thorough follow-up with solid documentation skills would also be important to find success with this opportunity.

Botany of the United States Exploring Expedition: 1838-1842

Code: NATHIST-14

Interns will have an opportunity to work directly with historic specimens, assist in the conservation effort, help to organize an enormous amount of data, and perform library and archives research. The U.S. National Herbarium is in the third year of a multi-year project to locate, organize and conserve the historic plant collections of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) under the command of Lt. Charles Wilkes. Because the approximately 10,000 specimens are stored in the collection according to the plant identification, the entire herbarium must be searched in order to locate these important specimens. With the assistance of published reports and archives documents, we are enhancing the collection data for each specimen and preparing a comprehensive publication on the Botany of the U.S. Exploring Expedition.

Safety Note: One reason the conservation effort is so critical is that many of the specimens have deteriorated due to historic treatments of mercuric chloride. This compound not only affects the specimen, but continues to generate mercury gasses at extremely low levels. The original studies into the effect of these compounds on historic specimens has been conducted at the Smithsonian. We have conducted over four years of sophisticated testing to insure the safety and health of all those who work with our collections.

Requirements: Must have a strong interest in working directly with museum collections, especially with regard to botanical specimens. Must possess strong research skills. Must be able to work independently and demonstrate a commitment to achieving project goals. Must be detail oriented and highly motivated. Careful handling MUST be applied in working with fragile, historical specimens. Knowledge of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access a plus. A minimum of 10 hours per week is required. Individuals best suited to the project are eager to search for 'buried' specimens, patient when they don't find them, and possess a sense of humor.

INOTAXA Project

Code: NATHIST-15

We seek the assistance of a student(s) interested in developing parsing scripts to accommodate the variation in structure and format of one subset of data in taxonomic literature (e.g., names of organisms, their synonyms or lists of specimens studied) and testing whether it is possible to 'teach' a computer to recognize the structure and choose the correct script for that format.

The INOTAXA project will enable researchers, policy advisors, educators, and the general public worldwide to better access to published taxonomic data. INOTAXA (INtegrated Open TAXonomic Access) is a model for global access to the data and information necessary for understanding the world's biota. It will be a web workspace in which taxonomic descriptions, identification keys, catalogues, names, specimen data, images and other resources can be accessed simultaneously according to user-defined needs. It was conceived and identified as a priority by a number of major museums and herbaria determined to demonstrate the potential of combining information, literature and research data held within their collections. This project will further develop and expand the results of the pilot in a key research and public policy arena.

The future of taxonomy lies in effective use of the internet. The taxonomic webspace we are building in INOTAXA will include access to, and easy upload of, digitized taxonomic descriptions and other information currently literature-based, images, and specimen, nomenclatural and geographical data. It will deliver information in user-defined ways, reduce repeated entry of the same data, be user-friendly and allow local caching and data analysis by appropriate web tools. It will be based on a distributed data model, using agreed community standards. INOTAXA will make data available in ways that are usable and analyzable by taxonomists, ecologists, conservationists, policy advisers, and students of all ages. While the project is focusing first on an interface for taxonomists (in order to improve and speed taxonomic work to provide better data to others), the same data can be used in interfaces that will be appropriate to the other users of taxonomic data, including the Encyclopedia of Life project. The project will use the tools and technology of the "Semantic Web".

The Biodiversity Heritage Library currently coordinated by Smithsonian Institution Libraries, will result in a massive amount of biodiversity literature freely available in digital form. Availability, does not mean that it will be easy for those who need it to find it because keyword searches of the entire text will be nearly the only way to access information. While very useful, keyword searches have serious drawbacks, including potential for provision of either too much or too little information, vocabulary sensitivity, and difficulty of collating data from many sources. Making the data optimally usable by taxonomists and others will require a working system using Semantic Web technology such as INOTAXA to parse the data, make it fully searchable and interoperable with other biodiversity data sets.

The next major aim of this project is to show that it is possible to build a 'library' of parsing scripts (computer programs which will take existing text and divide it into the logical pieces for searching that have been identified during the INOTAXA project and incorporated into taXMLit) which, when combined with Artificial Intelligence, will allow a taxonomists to automatically convert a taxonomic work to the taXMLit schema and incorporate it into INOTAXA. To date, we have only a small part of that 'library', which we have used successfully to parse one volume of the Biologia Centrali-Americana.

Requirements: A strong background in computer programming (especially Java, since existing scripts are written in Java) and the use of artificial intelligence/machine learning is required. Knowledge of fields of biology and biodiversity is preferred, but not necessary.

Power to the Podcasters!

Code: NATHIST-16

Podcasting, like RSS (Really Simple Syndication), is among the fastest growing internet audio visual technologies to syndicate and distribute online information. Likewise, it is growing as one of the best ways to promote museum events and dynamically changing and rich audio and video museum content. NMNH seeks to take advantage of established Podcast technologies and inexpensive tools to utilize its power and trend in support of the new NMNH Web Site which is about to be launched in the Spring of 2006 as well as for the promotion of museum events, new exhibits, online websites, and other museum promotional venues. The technical focus of this opportunity is to work with the NMNH IT Web Branch and/or internal content providers and web managers to develop and implement an easy-to-use Podcast toolbox, establish usage standards, audio encoding guidelines, and documentation for multiple and/or custom museum Podcast feeds through which to distribute and promote museum audio or visual information. If necessary, this opportunity would require ample research (if not already known) into Podcast standards and best practices from which the museum can take full advantage. Since the NMNH web sphere is emerging deeper into the Smithsonian's utilization of Interwoven TeamSite/OpenDeploy, our Web Content Management (WCM) system, this internship opportunity also offers the advantage of gaining valuable experience by working with a powerful and industry standard, enterprise wide WCM.

Requirements: This opportunities best suited for candidates with basic or advanced levels of audio and video web development and especially those with a good or aspiring understanding of Podcast technologies and associated encoding and RSS formats, and those that are interested in working within an industry standard WCM. Moreover, good communication skills, dynamic initiative, creativity, and thorough follow-up with solid documentation skills would also be important to find success with this opportunity.

Encyclopedia of Life

Code: NATHIST-17

The idea for the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is deceptively simple: construct a web site for each of the approximately 1.8 million species now known to be present on Earth, and make them all accessible through a single portal. The time for the EOL is right because there has been progress in recent years in making biodiversity information more accessible and because computing technologies have advanced to a point where this knowledge can be linked together in an efficient and cost-effective way. This project brings together several of the world's leading natural history museums and biodiversity research groups. The EOL Secretariat, housed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, coordinates and oversees activities of the five core component groups and interacts with the public, among other responsibilities. The EOL Secretariat seeks interns interested in assisting with internal and external outreach to the EOL's various audiences. Interns will work on a variety of projects such as designing outreach materials and conducting EOL web site reviews. We are also open to suggestions for exciting and engaging projects that will further the project's goals.

Requirements: Strong writing and communications skills a must. Knowledge of Adobe, PowerPoint, or other design programs (depending on the project) preferred.