Volunteer Opportunity with the OAC Herbarium

Are you passionate about plants, biodiversity, or museums? Want to gain hands-on experience in botanical research and digital collections? We're looking for enthusiastic volunteers to support the ongoing digitization of the OAC Herbarium!

The U of G OAC Herbarium, in partnership with the Canadian Museum of Nature, is looking for help transcribing their digitized collection of plant specimens, starting with ferns!

This work is essential for making the collection searchable and accessible to researchers, students and conservationists.

The OAC Herbarium includes 107,000 vascular plants and approximately 36,000 lichens and bryophytes, with a particular focus on the flora of southern Ontario.

Opportunities include:

• Volunteering on a flexible basis
• Completing a 100-hour internship for course credit (BIOL*3660)

What you'll learn:

• Plant diversity and herbarium specimen identification
• How to mount and handle herbarium specimens (as space permits)
• Digitization techniques and workflows
• Database building and data cleaning
• Use of global biodiversity portals like SYMBIOTA and GBIF

What you'll need:

• Your own personal computer
• A keen interest in plants and biodiversity

Please note: While mounting specimens is usually part of the experience, this activity may be paused this fall due to a planned move and renovation of the herbarium. In the meantime, volunteers will focus on annotating and publishing previously scanned specimens, including work related to our collaboration with the Canadian Museum of Nature.

To get started, visit the Guelph Herbarium page on Zooniverse.org.

To express interest in the internship or ask questions, please contact Carole Ann Lacroix (botcal@uoguelph.ca), or Dr. Edeline Gagnon (edeline.gagnon@uoguelph.ca).