Guide to Digitising Whole Drawers of Specimens

All natural history collections, as well as many other collections, store specimens and collection objects in drawers. Digitising drawers as objects—imaging and databasing them—is a relatively new activity for most collecting institutions.


This guide provides a framework for embarking on the drawer digitisation journey. It describes a process for digitising drawers and highlights the issues and decisions that need to be made during the digitisation process.