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Compact Plan for the Intermountain Herbarium

Note: This compact plan was developed in response to a request from Dr. Kermit Hall, President of Utah State University, that each unit within the university develop a 'Compact Plan'. There were explicit instructions for such plans. For instance, one had to identify how the unit would contribute to achievement of each of the university's goals over the next five years. Because 'unit', for purposes of compact planning did not include the herbarium, this plan follows the spirit rather than the details of the request. If you have questions, send them to mary@biology.usu.edu.

The Intermountain Herbarium provides the resources needed for accurate plant identification, acts as a source of information on the geographic and ecological distribution of species, and serves as a depository for specimens documenting research projects. Because accurate plant identification is critical to work in many disciplines, including taxonomy, ecology, weed and land management, and plant breeding, herbaria, the collections and references they contain, and the staff that maintain them, are essential resources for all those involved in such disciplines.

The overall mission of the Intermountain Herbarium is to increase knowledge of the flora of the intermountain region (basically Utah and Nevada, but including parts of southeastern Oregon,southern Idaho, southwestern Wyoming, and eastern California) . Its primary resource is its carefully preserved collection of over 235,000 specimens; the value of these specimens is enhanced by the herbarium’s reference library of over 5,000 catalogued volumes and many more reprints that have not been catalogued. The catalogued items are included in the catalogue of the university's main library.

About half the specimens in the Intermountain Herbarium are from the intermountain region. Most of the remainder are from North America, but there are substantial holdings from other parts of the world. Such extra-regional collections are vital to assessing the taxonomic treatment of species within the region.

Most of the specimens are of vascular plants because these are the most evident but, with a growing appreciation of the importance of bryophytes and fungi even in desert ecosystems, efforts are being made to expand the holdings the staff's ability to respond to questions in these areas. 

Commitment/Goal: Add an average of 2,500 specimens per year to the collection, with at least half coming from the Intermountain Region.

Year 1, 2002. Only 1,739 specimens added. There were two problems contributing to this failure. One was that we encountered numerous computer-related problems which precluded entering data from mounted specimens into the herbarium database, the last step before depositing specimens into the collection. Because we have limited facilities for storing specimens prior to databasing, we  stopped mounting specimens. Another problem was that some of the students hired to work in the herbarium were unable to work as many hours as promised.  

Both problems have been addressed. Faulty computers have been replaced and errors in the database corrected.   Students hired to work in the herbarium are now advised that they will be replaced if they fall more than two weeks behind in their work commitment.

The Intermountain Herbarium is recognized as a major regional herbarium. It is the second largest herbarium in the Intermountain Region (that of Brigham Young University is larger) and serves as a major resource for those conducting plant research in the region. Because Utah State University is a land grant institution with a mandate to serve the public, the herbarium is open for research workers and others during all normal business hours, even during the field season.

Data from about a quarter of the specimens have been entered into a database. Knowing this, many research workers approach the herbarium for information on the distribution of individual species, knowing that it can be provided in digital format.  Specimens are also made available on loan to other institutions, as is standard practice among herbaria.

The herbarium is also the editorial center for development of a Manual of Grasses for North America and the two grass volumes of Flora North America.  It also hosts Web sites for two grass tribes, the Stipeae, which has over 500 species worldwide and the Triticeae, which is best known for being the tribe of wheat, barley, and rye.  As a result, the herbarium is internationally recognized as a center for research on grasses. Publication of the grass volumes, which will take place over the next five years, will make enhance this reputation. The long range goal is to use the tools and abilities developed by preparing the grass volumes in developing identification tools, including online identification tools, for the region’s flora.

The herbarium staff is actively working on development of a Web site that will make information from the specimens freely and widely available. The extent and rate of this development is dependent on funding. The existing Web site, which has been developed without any special funding, provides limited information about the herbarium and the Grass Manual project. A better Web site, populated slowly with information on local species, can be achieved with basic funding.  Potential sources of additional funding include programs within the National Science Foundation and the U.S.D.A.  Our desire is to develop a Web site that provides distributional information in the form of maps and checklists and has links from the names of the taxa to a database of images developed from the slide collection and line drawings belonging to the herbarium.  

No other herbarium in the region has a well-developed Web site; most simply provide information on the total number of holdings in the herbarium and the Email addresses of the staff. 

Commitment/Goals: Publication of FNA vol. 25 in 2003, of FNA 24 in 2005, and of the Manual in 2005. Funding for completion of FNA 24 and the Manual has not been secured. 

Year 1, 2002. FNA volume 25 is on track for publication in 2003. Enough funding was secured to continue work on volume 24 through June 30, 2003.

Year 2, 2003. FNA vol. 25 was submitted for publication on March 1, 2003, and actually published around May 13. 

Subject to funding: development of a Web site that provides easy access to information about plant distributions and images of individual species based on the herbarium's resources.

Year 1, 2002. An application for funding this activity was rejected.   

Students in many different fields find the herbarium’s resources useful, both in their classes and in their subsequent careers. We are working at increasing the number of students that become aware of the herbarium’s resources early in their academic career by contacting faculty in appropriate departments and encouraging them to introduce their students to the facility. Two measures of our success will be the number of classes that tour the facility and the number of students that sign the visitors’ book indicating that they are visiting the herbarium in connection with a class or project. 

Commitment/Goal: Have at least 5 classes per year introduce students to the herbarium.

Year 1, 2002. 

The other manner in which the herbarium could enhance a student’s university experience is by offering more employment opportunities. We shall explore opportunities for funding the many projects that we would like to undertake in the herbarium.  

Commitment/Goal: Be able to fund two undergraduate positions per year from external sources.  Such experience would aid students seeking employment in environmentally oriented fields.  

Year 1, 2002.  We were able to employ one student from external sources. She worked on scanning slides for the use on an invasive weeds web site.

The gender diversity in the herbarium fluctuates significantly from year to year because the total number of employees is small and a high proportion are undergraduates. There are currently more females than males; the two staff positions are occupied by females.  During the past few years, the majority of undergraduate employees have been male.

All those employed in the herbarium, and almost all those using its facilities, are caucasian anglophones.  Probably the most important step that could be taken for increasing linguistic diversity would be for at least one of the staff members to become fluent in Spanish, but that takes time and practice. At present, staff resources are strained to the limit in attempting to meet the herbarium’s primary mission; asking them to spend the time and energy required to learn a foreign language is not realistic. 

Barkworth (Herbarium Director) is actively collaborating with taxonomists from other parts of the world, including Mexico and South America. During the next five years, she will attempt to obtain the funding needed to bring these individuals to campus. The primary purpose of their visit would be research, but they will be invited to lead or participate in a field trip or workshop for Hispanic speaking students and members of the public during their stay. Barkworth also anticipates spending an extended period of time collecting in Argentina during the next five years.  During that time, she will make a conscious effort, with the assistance of her hosts, to become somewhat fluent in Spanish.

Commitment/Goal: Bring Spanish speaking taxonomists to campus who are willing to participate in a field trip or workshop directed toward middle or high school students. 

Year 1, 2002.  No progress.

Good graduate students are attracted to institutions with an active graduate program, one that includes support for their research.  Once Barkworth’s responsibilities as lead editor for two volumes on grass have been discharged, she plans to develop collaborative research programs in two tribes of grasses that appeal to her. These will offer some opportunities for graduate student research. Her present funding does not permit support of graduate students.

A major impediment to developing a graduate program that centers on the resources of the herbarium is the location of the herbarium. Graduate students benefit from associating with other graduate students, both in their own area and, equally importantly, in other areas. The herbarium is physically isolated from the remainder of the department and from departments in other colleges that would have overlapping or complementary interests, for example, Range Science, Plant Sciences, Landscape Architecture, Agriculture, and Anthropology. Graduate students also need to have easy access to specialized laboratories. There are no laboratory facilities in the herbarium.

The best solution to this problem would be to move the herbarium to a new facility, one that is physically linked to the buildings housing the College of Natural Resources and Department of Biology. All students and staff involved would benefit from the increased interaction that would result from such a move.  Housing would also be pleased as the space currently occupied by the herbarium was intended to provide recreational space for students in the surrounding dormitories. It was taken over for the herbarium when the previous herbarium location was declared unsafe.

Commitment/Goal: Develop funding for one graduate student per year.

Year 1, 2002. One graduate student in the College of Natural Resources was funded on the Grass Manual project. A proposal that would have provided funding for an additional position was rejected.   

The herbarium’s efficiency has increased over the last few years by development of additions to the database program that permitted relatively easy generation of specimen labels, distribution maps, and county checklists. Last year’s conversion to a new and more powerful database program means that these facilities need to be recreated.  We also plan to add new abilities (see under National and International Reputation). Doing so will require a considerable investment of staff time.  We shall explore opportunities for obtaining additional support for such activities, possibly as part of an outreach program.

Taxonomic and floristic projects frequently take a long time to come to fruition, far longer than anticipated. A critical component of all business models are accurate estimates of the time required to complete various tasks and how staff time is spent.  The Manual of Grasses for North America and the Flora North America project are only two examples among many floristic projects that have not been completed within the time and budget originally envisioned. A major problem is that most such projects are unrealistically funded, partly because those responsible for proposals do not have a realistic estimation of the real time and costs involved. 

Commitment/Goal: Leadership being essential in this regard, Barkworth will start recording her use of time. Once she has developed good records for three consecutive months, she will ask others in the herbarium to do so, possibly using Microsoft Project.  Such data will be of value in preparing grant proposals as well as developing realistic time frames.

Year 1, 2002. Barkworth completed about three months worth of data entry but this record keeping has not been implemented as the general rule for herbarium staff.

The herbarium serves many units inside and outside the university. In terms of formal collaborations, it is serving as the Grass Editorial Center for Flora North America, maintains the Web site for the International Triticeae Consortium, and serves as a primary center for the Stipeae Working Group.  It also has an active exchange program with many other herbaria, both in the United States and elsewhere.  This last creates an obligation to collect interesting specimens for the exchange program, but it results in the herbarium having a more broadly based collection than would be possible otherwise.

We shall explore with representatives of the Utah Botanical Garden, Campus Planning, and Physical Plant the possibility of being formally identified as a place for depositing vouchers specimens of plants being grown by these units.  Such specimens would enhance our holdings of ornamental plants; these are, at present, rather poor. 

Commitment/Goal: Collect 2,000 specimens per year for the exchange program. Develop partnerships with various federal agencies that will enhance the collection while benefiting the agency concerned. 

Year 1, 2002. 

Year 2, 2003. Provided facilities to the National Park Service for work on a new version of the Utah Rare Plant book.  

For the herbarium to play a more vital role in attainment of Utah State University’s long range goals, its relocation to a building that brings it into routine contact with the students and faculty that would benefit most from its resources is essential. In addition, it needs to be located adjacent to a classroom that is appropriately equipped for teaching taxonomy classes and workshops. In today’s world, such a classroom should provide each student with a dissecting microscope, a compound microscope, and a computer terminal linked to the Internet. There should be also be a sink, fume hood, and chemical cabinet so that simple anatomical and cytological studies can be conducted. 

The space required for the herbarium itself would be approximately 7,600 sq. ft, including 1300 sq. ft for the reference library and 1000 sq ft. for offices and open work benches.  There should also be sufficient space to allow for expansion of the collection by about 3,000 specimens per year (1 cabinet), plus work areas for preparing the specimens. 

Provision of the kind of classroom described would permit the offering of professional workshops that would benefit the herbarium, both in terms of its reputation and its financial situation. The facilities needed exist elsewhere on campus, but not in a single teaching laboratory and not near the university’s greatest taxonomic resource, the herbarium.

An alternative possibility, but one that would not offer anything like the advantages of moving to a building linked to the Biology and Natural Resources, would be to install compactors in the present location. They would make it possible to house the whole of the existing collection, plus allow for about 10 years of expansion, in one portion of the area currently assigned to the herbarium. This would free up space that could be remodeled for use in teaching plant taxonomy and workshops.  The space vacated already has an exterior door. 

We can apply to the curatorial program of the National Science Foundation for some of the funding involved, but the program is not designed to support remodeling that basically provides for teaching rather than the needs of the collection. It might be acceptable to include the costs of installing compactors and associated remodeling of the office space in a collections improvement proposal. Such an activity would, however, inevitably have a major negative impact on production of the grass volumes so it will be delayed until they have been published.

Commitment/Goal: Maintain records that will provide strong support for any capital campaign that would benefit the herbarium. Offer at least one workshop per year [added in 2003] .

Year 2, 2003. Michael Piep offered a workshop on fungal identification that was well attended, He has been asked to offer another in the fall.

Most of these are reflected in the above paragraphs. The one other major dream is to establish a source of funding for the maintenance of the herbarium that is independent of the state and university budgets. Sales of the grass volumes are one potential source of such funding. Although the royalties will be sent to the university, it is hoped that the university will recognize that they should be fed back to the herbarium and not be used as justification for reducing the funding currently provided by the Research Office and Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. Another possibility, one that will be explored within the next five years, is establishing a 'Friends of the Intermountain Herbarium' group. 

Prepared by Mary Barkworth, Director of the Intermountain Herbarium