The collections of items held by a museum form the backbone of a museum, providing the basis for exhibits, education, and research. Because we strive to present clear educational material in our exhibits, there isn’t enough room to incorporate all of our objects into public displays. Additionally, many of the items are not complete, well preserved, or stable enough for display. However, they still have education and research importance. So the Paleontology Department has been working hard to transcribe information into a digital format, photograph specimens, and import all of the fossil data into a new publicly accessible database on the Sternberg Museum website. We are excited to announce that the database is now live! Check out https://sternbergca.fhsu.edu/ for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the Sternberg Museum’s paleontology collections. And don’t forget to check back – we will be adding more photographs and 3D scans of fossils over the next few years as we make our way through the entire collection.
The digitization and archiving of our collection in a new relational database is part of a National Science Foundation “Collections in Support of Biological Collections” grant to the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.
Wilson Paleontology Research Group 