Description
Beginning in the mid-1900s , naturalist Daniel Smiley and his associates and successors at the Daniel Smiley Research Center documented extensive natural history observations of the flora and fauna of the Shawangunk Ridge on over 14,000 3x5” index cards. Observations are highly detailed and often include narrative descriptions as well as basic observational information. The duration, extent and specificity of this dataset provide a wealth of information to support and inform biodiversity research, environmental management and ecological sciences.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 51,046 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Mohonk Preserve. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 1260b7e1-852a-4344-8299-3426ab4ffc19. Mohonk Preserve publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.
Keywords
Occurrence; Observation
Contacts
- Originator
- Originator
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8480-2478
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator
- Originator
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator
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- Point Of Contact
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Geographic Coverage
Collected in the vicinity of Mohonk Preserve on the Shawangunk Ridge in New Paltz, Ulster County, NY, USA
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [41.754, -74.153], North East [41.754, -74.153] |
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Project Data
Beginning in the mid-1900s, naturalist Daniel Smiley and his associates and successors at the Daniel Smiley Research Center documented extensive natural history observations of the flora and fauna of the Shawangunk Ridge on over 14,000 3x5” index cards. Observations are highly detailed and often include narrative descriptions as well as basic observational information.
| Title | Mohonk Preserve Historical Observational Natural History Data |
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| Funding | Institute of Museum and Library Services Museums for America Program Grant, 2019. |
Sampling Methods
The first step in digitizing the natural history index card collection was to produce an image scan for the front (and, if relevant, back) of each card. This was completed by Mohonk Preserve’s Digitization Technician with the assistance of volunteers. Scanned images of the cards were uploaded to the Zooniverse Notes from Nature platform for transcription by remote volunteers. Staff provided support in designing the project, troubleshooting issues that came up during the transcription process and responding to volunteer questions. In July of 2020, Mohonk Preserve publicly launched the project on Zooniverse, titled “A Century of Natural History Observations”. This original launch of the project only contained a subset of cards, mainly bird and plant species. This first set of cards was completely transcribed by the end of October 2020, and a second set of cards was added to the project in early November 2020. In total, 14,435 cards were added to the Zooniverse project, and 2,657 volunteers from around the world contributed to the transcription effort. All uploaded cards were completely transcribed in early June of 2021.
| Study Extent | Mohonk Preserve co-founder and prominent regional naturalist Daniel Smiley was an avid observer and recorder of the natural world around him. He methodically recorded observations on 3x5 index cards throughout his life and trained his associates and successors to do the same. This resulted in a unique, detailed record of the flora and fauna of the Shawangunk Ridge over many decades. Each index card contains information similar to a museum specimen label (i.e. date, location, observer’s name, taxonomy), and other pertinent information such as weather, behavior (for animals), phenological information, and historical context. Many cards also contain additional narrative notes. |
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| Quality Control | Once volunteer card transcription was completed, staff began the process of data review and cleaning. In order to help catch errors in transcription, Zooniverse will present the same card to four different volunteers. If all four volunteers transcribe the same information, then that card is accepted and considered complete. If, however, there are differences in the transcriptions, Zooniverse will present the card to at least one more volunteer. If the card still comes back with uncertainty, it will be sent back to the developers as incomplete. Due to volunteer difficulties in interpreting observer handwriting, volunteer inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation, and idiosyncratic notation and abbreviation styles by the original observers, a large number of index cards were returned as incomplete. Incomplete cards were replicated – sometimes multiple times – in the transcription spreadsheet, and data cleaning focused first on removing replicates. This was accomplished by a combination of manual review and coded scripts in R. Subsequent data cleanup focused on correcting discrepancies in common names, reconciling common names with current scientific names, and accuracy-checking observer and location data. Finally, data were reorganized to meet Darwin Core standards and linked to appropriate image records for the original scanned index cards. |
Method step description:
- Mohonk Preserve co-founder and prominent regional naturalist Daniel Smiley was an avid observer and recorder of the natural world around him. He methodically recorded observations on 3x5 index cards throughout his life and trained his associates and successors to do the same. This resulted in a unique, detailed record of the flora and fauna of the Shawangunk Ridge over many decades. Each index card contains information similar to a museum specimen label (i.e. date, location, observer’s name, taxonomy), and other pertinent information such as weather, behavior (for animals), phenological information, and historical context. Many cards also contain additional narrative notes.
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | 1260b7e1-852a-4344-8299-3426ab4ffc19 |
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| https://ipt.gbif.us/resource?r=mohonk-index-card |