2012: An Atlas of the World’s Conifers

An atlas of the world’s conifers is being prepared by Aljos Farjon and Denis Filer. The atlas, based on data stored in the BRAHMS conifer database, will indicate the known distribution of all conifer taxa together with an analysis of their biogeography, diversity and conservation status. To be published by Brill (Leiden, The Netherlands) during 2012.

 

April 2012: South African National Biodiversity Institute

Two BRAHMS training courses are being held at the South African National Biodiversity Institutes at Kirstenbosch Research Centre in Cape Town and at the National Herbarium in Pretoria. The courses will include all aspects of general curation as well as more specialized research topics including the capture and processing of images and publishing data online. These courses are being organised and co-funded by SANBI and will be presented by Denis Filer from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford. The Pretoria workshop will have support in Portuguese for participants from Angola and Mozambique. BRAHMS is being implemented by SANBI as herbarium information management system replacing PRECIS.

 

December 2011: UKOT Online Herbarium launch

14 December 2011: the BRAHMS online herbarium website for all of the UK Overseas Territories will be officially launched at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in London, UK. The online herbarium project has been developed by Kew's UKOTs Programme and funded by the Overseas Territories Environment Programme (OTEP). The UKOTs online herbarium is part of Kew's commitment to the delivery of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC).

 

December 2011: Amazonian REFLORA project, Brazil

The Amazonian REFLORA project is holding its initial planning and training meeting at INPA (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia)in Manaus from the 5-9 December. Almost all of the 20 plus Amazonian herbaria have already been informatized using BRAHMS and several have been photographed using the recommended BRAHMS procedures. The three-year project, funded by the Brazilian national and Amazonas state governments, is to compare, improve and make available data on Amazonian plants. The aim of this meeting is to promote the interchange of information between herbaria, and with herbaria outside Brazil, and especially to improve the level of identification quality through the exchange of identifications of collections held in duplicata in different herbaria. Twelve of the Amazonian herbaria will be represented at the meeting, which will include training in database cleaning, specimen photography and renaming files, use of determination files created by database comparisons, as well as creation of sites directly from BRAHMS. The project’s BOL website is http://brahms.inpa.gov.br/bol/amazonia. Meeting coordinated by Mike Hopkins.

 

October 2011: East African Herbarium reaches digitisation milestone

As part of an on-going effort to digitise the whole of it's collection, the East African Herbarium (EA) in Nairobi has now completed 100,000 records, 10% of its target. For further details about the EA digitisation project, contact Simon Kang'ethe Ndichu (simonkangethe@yahoo.com).

 

October 2011: Second Eastern African Virtual Herbarium Project Workshop, Nairobi, Kenya

Representatives from the East African Herbarium (EA) in Nairobi and the Addis Ababa University Herbarium (ETH) attended a 2 day workshop hosted by EA and RBG Kew. Homepages have now been completed for these two institutes and digitisation programmes proposed. For further details about the Eastern African Virtual Herbarium Project contact Tim Pearce (t.pearce@kew.org).

 

September 2011: Milestone at the Kepong Herbarium, Malaysia

Reported by Saw Leng Guan, Director of the Tropical Forest Biodiversity Centre at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, the Kepong herbarium botany team (Saripah and Asnah mentioned in particular) have now catalogued data and many images from over 200,000 specimens. The KEP herbarium database, the largest available on the Malay peninsula, supports curation and a wide range of taxonomic and floristic research projects on the flora of the Malaysia. For further details about KEP herbarium, contact the KEP curator Richard Chung (richard@frim.gov.my).

 

September 2011: BRAHMS training at RBG Kew herbarium, UK

20 - 21 September 2011. A 2 day BRAHMS for beginners training event for some Kew herbarium staff and visiting researchers. This will go some way to support the growing number of new users working at the Kew herbarium. A data transfer module from BRAHMS to Kew's proprietary specimen catalogue (HerbCat) was developed last year. Course organized and given by Tim Pearce.

 

July 2011: BRAHMS course, Bews Herbarium, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

11 - 15 July 2011: Comprehensive introductory training course on BRAHMS at the Bews herbarium (NU), School for Biological and Conservation Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg with representatives from regional herbaria and conservation organisations. The course will focus on curation and data management as well as on transfer of data from PRECIS to BRAHMS. The course is organised by Drs. Bytebier and Potgieter of the Bews Herbarium and will be given by Denis Filer from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford. The course is co-sponsored by the South African Biodiversity Information Facility and the Early Detection and Rapid Response Programme of the South African National Biodiversity Institute.

 

May 2011: BRAHMS implemented at Oxford Botanic Garden

The new BRAHMS living collections module developed with the Leiden and Oxford botanic gardens has been installed initially at Oxford. Implementation at Leiden will be in June. One of the objectives at Oxford is to cross reference the living collections data and images with specimen vouchers as registered in the FHO/OXF herbarium database and to streamline (perhaps eventually unite) these databases. The living collections module will be published with BRAHMS 6.9 this month.

 

April 2011: BRAHMS presentation in Ukraine

14 April 2011. A presentation given by Olga Korniyenko at M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany, NAS of Ukraine in Kiev at the first Ukrainian herbarium digitization and management meeting, 11-16 April, 2011 organised by the institute director Prof. Sergei Mosyakin. The meeting had c. 50 participants from around Ukraine, Belorussia, elsewhere from the Russian Federation and the USA. The meeting was funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A BRAHMS ppt in Ukrainian (translated by Olga Korniyenko) is available on request. A summary of BRAHMS in Russian is on http://dps.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/BRAHMS/Home/About/.

 

June 2011: Plant identification and database course, Aveiro, Portugal

27 June - 1 July 2011. Training course to be held at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. This will include sessions on BRAHMS. For further information and registration by 30 May, visit http://cursobotanica.blogs.ua.sapo.pt/. Course organiser: Paulo Silveira.

 

May 2011: BRAHMS Version 6.9 published

BRAHMS Version 6.9 published 30 May 2011 together with the new living collections module. Review latest upgrade notes.

 

April 2011: BRAHMS presentation to Naturalis, Netherlands

5 April 2011. A presentation given by Denis Filer to Naturalis (National Museum of Natural History) in Leiden. The presentation described the use of BRAHMS for curation and research across a range of projects including the National Herbarium of the Netherlands (NHN) which operates the largest BRAHMS database to date. Also discussed - the development and re-structuring of BRAHMS over the next one to two years as the system is upgraded to its new platform.

 

November 2010: Towards an Eastern African Virtual Herbarium, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

The first Regional workshop for the Eastern African Virtual Herbarium was hosted by the National Herbarium of Ethiopia at Addis Ababa University. Supported by a generous grant to the RBG Kew from the Dulverton Trust, the workshop brought together staff representing the 5 major regional herbaria. 15 participants from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia enjoyed some BRAHMS 'refresher' training before designing institutional web pages and undertaking species conservation assessments on regionally compiled data. A second workshop will be held in early 2011. Contact: Tim Pearce, RBG Kew, t.pearce@kew.org

 

November 2010: BRAHMS Version 6.8 published

BRAHMS Version 6.8 published 01 November 2010 together with new 'About BRAHMS' information pages in multiple languages; a resived help file; and an updated 2010 BRAHMS for beginners training guide. New and improved features are listed on the documentation page. Review latest upgrade notes.

 

October to December 2009: University of Campinas, Brazil

Continued development of BRAHMS to facilitate data capture and subsequent publication of various floras in Brazil. Digitization of UEC herbarium. In collaboration with the Dept. of Botany, University of Campinas. Sponsored by FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo).

 

September 2010: BRAHMS training course, Herbário IAN, Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Brazil

13 - 17 September 2010. BRAHMS training course at the Laboratório de Informática, Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Belém - PA, Brazil. In partnership with the Amazon Forest Management Project. Instructors: Helena Joseane Raiol Souza e Sebastião Ribeiro Xavier Júnior.

 

September 2010: South Georgia Online Herbarium launch

15 September 2010: the BRAHMS online herbarium website for South Georgia will be officially launched at RBG Kew as part of the UKOT research programme (UK Overseas Territories). The online herbarium component of this project is funded by the Overseas Territories Environment Programme OTEP and the achievment is part of Kew's Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC).

 

September 2010: BRAHMS seminar, RBG Kew, UK

9 September 2010: BRAHMS for researchers. Presentation at Herbarium, RBG Kew by Denis Filer with reference to Palm, Mrytaceae and West Tropical Africa datasets.

 

September 2010: 61st Brazil National Botanical Congress - Image management in BRAHMS

4 - 5 September 2010: Mini-course on image management in BRAHMS. Course presented by Mike Hopkins, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA). 61st National Botanical Congress, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. [Ementa: Curso prático para mostrar como pode gerenciar imagens botânicas digitais usando o programa BRAHMS, incluindo renomeação de imagens rapidamente em padrão para importação. Ligação com informação já presente em bancos de dados botânicos, e como usar imagens para a entrada de dados com eficiência.] More details.

 

August 2010: National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), Namibia

16 - 20 August 2010: Comprehensive introductory training course on BRAHMS at the National Herbarium of Namibia. The course will cover installation, optimized data entry using RDE, imaging, mapping, diversity analysis, checklisting, loan management, report template design and online publishing. The Namibian database will be linked to other database projects running at NBRI such as that used by the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) project. Course given by Denis Filer from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford. Course sponsored by the National Botanical Research Institute, Namibia.

 

June 2010: Biodiversity Information Facility rapid imaging pilot project, South Africa

The value of the rapid low resolution imaging of specimen labels to Rapid Data Entry files to expedite digitisation of herbarium specimens will be tested in the Compton Herbarium (NBG), South Africa. This pilot project is sponsored by the South African Biodiversity Information Facility (SABIF) and has potential to guide SABIF best-practice policies.

 

May 2010: National Herbarium Netherlands

17 - 21 May 2010: training and technical meeting in Leiden with focus on Living Collections management. Visit coordinated by Gerda van Uffelen and Luc Willemse. Sponsored by National Herbarium of the Netherlands.

 

May 2010: BRAHMS Version 6.7 published

BRAHMS Version 6.7 published 10 May 2010 together with updated help file and revised 2010 training guide. New and improved features are listed on the documentation page. Review latest upgrade notes.

 

April 2010: Brunei National Herbarium (BRUN), Sungai Liang, Brunei

6 - 10 April 2010: BRAHMS training course focusing on curation and publishing online. Course held at Brunei Herbarium coordinated by Joffre Ali Ahmad and Dr. Jacqueline Henrot. Course given by Serena Lee (Herbarium Manager, Singapore Herbarium, Singapore Botanic Gardens). Sponsored by Brunei National Herbarium and Singapore Botanic Gardens.

 

March 2010: Importance of herbaria for plant conservation workshop, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

8 - 12 March 2010. Use of BRAHMS to analyse and map species distribution and diversity, Botanical Garden of Santo Domingo (JBSD). Presented by Jeanine Vélez Gavilán (Herbarium MAPR, Puerto Rico). Sponsored by Red Latinoamericana de Botánica.

 

March 2010: Plant endemism of the Central Andean valleys, Bolivia

8 - 13 March 2010. BRAHMS training with herbaria in Santa Cruz (USZ) and La Paz (LPB). Sponsored by Darwin Initiative Project Plant endemism of the Central Andean valleys.

 

February 2010: Threatened Plants Project, Madagascar

8 - 12 February 2010. BRAHMS training course for herbarium/seed management, mapping and diversity analysis. Sponsored by Madagascar Threatened Plants Project, RBG Kew.

 

February 2010: BRAHMS Version 6.6

BRAHMS Version 6.6 published 5 February 2010 together with revised 2010 training guide. Version 6.6 includes new admin and security features for installation on network drives together with a host of new data editing, analysis, reporting and mapping features.

 

December 2009: Third Meeting of the Plant Innitiative 'LAPI', Medellín, Colombia

1 - 3 December 2009. Databasing tools and data exchange: BRAHMS 6 overview, at Botanical Garden (JAUM). Sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

 

November 6 2009: Jardim Botânico, Rio de Janeiro

Current developments with BRAHMS including Client-Server implementation. Presentation at the Herbarium of Rio de Janeiro Botanic Gardens.

 

October to December 2009: University of Campinas, Brazil

Development of BRAHMS to facilitate data capture and subsequent publication of various floras in Brazil. In collaboration with the Dept. of Botany, University of Campinas. Sponsored by FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo).

 

Sept 2009: BRAHMS training course, IEPA, Amapá , Brazil

28 Sept - 02 Oct 2009. BRAHMS course for curation and research applications. Held at Herbário HAMAB. Sponsored by IEPA (Instituto de Pesquisas Científicas e Tecnológicas do Estado do Amapá). Instructors: Helena Joseane Raiol Souza e Sebastião Ribeiro Xavier Júnior (Herbário IAN, Embrapa Amazônia Oriental).

 

August 2009: Academy of Science and Technology, Vietnam

17 - 22 August 2009. BRAHMS herbarium curation course. VNM Herbarium, Hochiminh City, Vietnam. Institute of Tropical Biology (Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology). Sponsored by L'Institut de recherché pour le développement (IRD).

 

July 2009: Conservation of endangered coastal biodiversity hotspots of Central Chile

27 July to 7 August. BRAHMS training held in Department of Plant Sciences, Oxford. Specimen and image management + biodiversity analysis. Funded from Darwin Initiative project 'Conservation of endangered coastal biodiversity hotspots of Central Chile'.

 

June 2009: BRAHMS upgraded to Version 6.5

25 June. BRAHMS upgrade to Version 6.5. Upgrade notes are provided in help file.

 

June 2009: Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Cape Town, South Africa

1 June - 5 June 2009. Plant E-taxonomy in South Africa. BRAHMS course held at the Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Cape Town. Sponsored by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).

 

May 2009: National Herbarium, Pretoria, South Africa

26 May - 29 May 2009. Plant E-taxonomy in South Africa. BRAHMS course held at the National Herbarium, Pretoria. Sponsored by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).

 

May 2009: BRAHMS training course, Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Brazil

25 - 29 May 2009. Introduction to BRAHMS for herbarium management and research. Held at Laboratório de Informática, Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Belém - PA, Brazil. Instructors: Helena Joseane Raiol Souza e Sebastião Ribeiro Xavier Júnior. Coordinated by Embrapa Amazônia Oriental (Herbário IAN) and Museu Goeldi (MG).

 

May 2009: Rescue and Integration of Botanical Data in the Southwestern Amazon

10 - 14 May 2009. BRAHMS training course and review of BOL online network. Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil. Rescue and Integration of Botanical Data for Conservation in the Southwestern Amazon. Together with New York Botanic Garden. Sponsored by the J.R.S Biodiversity Foundation.

 

March 2009: Flora of Peninsular Malaysia

16 - 20 March 2009. Advanced BRAHMS training course. Tropical Forest Biodiversity Centre (TFBC), FRIM, Malaysia. Sponsored by the Flora of Peninsular Malaysia project.

 

March 2009: Biodiversity Informatics Project, Ghana

2 - 6 March 2009. BRAHMS training course. Ghana Biodiversity Informatics Project, Accra, Ghana. Sponsored by the J.R.S Biodiversity Foundation.

 

February 2009: Tbilisi Botanical Garden and Institute of Botany, Georgia

9 - 13 February 2009. BRAHMS training course with emphasis on seed bank management. Tbilisi Botanical Garden and Institute of Botany, Tbilisi, Georgia. Sponsored by RBG Kew.

 

November 2008: DNA module for BRAHMS

20 - 21 November 2008. Development of a DNA module for BRAHMS. Discussion workshop funded by EDIT project - European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy. Coordinated by Denis Filer, Held at Plant Sciences, University of Oxford with representatives from Kew and Oxford (UK); Leiden (Netherlands); and Uppsala (Sweden).