University of California, Los Angeles (Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden)

The Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden at the University of California, Los Angeles, will improve the management of its existing plant records by digitizing and verifying its living collection holdings and making them available online. The project will allow dispersed records to be collected from multiple sources, updated, digitized, and made available online, as well as in the Botanic Gardens Conservation International PlantSearch database. Support for the project will include the purchase of a dog-tag printer, database software, a digital camera, and a new computer. The garden will hire a curatorial assistant who will print accession tags, field check plants, and perform data entry, while receiving training in botanical curation from garden staff and university faculty. The garden will also engage a faculty botanist to work on identification of unknown specimens and to help oversee the project. The project will improve the long-term curation of the collection and increase its accessibility to the botanical community and the public.