Current data entry is limited to the vascular plant collection.

Efforts to digitize WTU's specimens started in early 2002 through a joint agreement between the Washington Natural Heritage Program and the Bureau of Land Management to document the county-level distribution of all vascular plant taxa in Washington. 19,000 WTU specimens were entered, representing one specimen per species per county. Our database was brought online through a separate grant from the Washington Native Plant Society.

By 2007 we plan to have all of our Pacific Northwest vascular plant specimens entered into our database and available online, supported by a Biological Research Collections grant from the National Science Foundation in 2004. Our long-term goals include digitizing the label data for all of our collections.

Our vascular plant type specimens are currently being photographed and will be available online with full label data in early 2005.

WTU uses FileMaker 7.0 for backend database management. The UCR Herbarium at the University of California, Riverside provided us with a copy of their database files, which we have modified extensively to suit our needs. Those interested in learning more about our database, or obtaining a blank copy for their own use, should contact Ben Legler (blegler@u.washington.edu)