New methods, new potentials! Using digital approaches to explore herbarium collections of the Moravian Church

Conference poster presented at the 15th Annual Conference for University Collections 2024 in Zurich (13th-15th June 2024). https://gesellschaft-universitaetssammlungen.de/tagungen/15-sammlungstagung-zuerich-13-15-juni-2024/ Topic of the conference: New roles, new goals? Interplay of University collections between research, finance and politics. In a current project, specimens from the Herbarium Dresdense, Germany, which were collected by members of the Moravian Church in the 18th and 19th centuries, are being identified and analysed. Botanical approaches, digital humanities methods and linked open data are used to investigate the Moravians diverse contributions to botany and their role in the scientific community of the time. With the development of new technologies, university collections are constantly being given new opportunities for analysis, which confirms their immense value and potential for future research. Based on a historical visit to South Africa, the poster shows how digital humanities, history, geoinformatics, and botany are working together to uncover the contributions of Moravian collectors to the natural sciences in the 19th century. Attachment: High resolution image of Figure 4.