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Oral Presentation

Poster Display

Student Competition

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Member Symposium

Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity

Formal and Informal Teaching

Entomology Collections: Windows to the Past, Present, and Future

Preserving California specimens in an Illinois collection

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

3:12 PM - 3:22 PM Pacific

Location: Oregon Convention Center, Portland Ballroom 253, OCC

Presenting Author(s)

Michelle Kohler (she/her/hers)

Assistant to the Collection Manager
Illinois Natural History Survey
Champaign, Illinois

Co-Author(s)

Thomas McElrath

Collections Manager
Illinois Natural History Survey
Champaign, Illinois
Lily Hart (she/her/hers)

Graduate Student
University of Illinois
Champaign, Illinois

This year, we received funding for a grant from the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collection aimed at digitizing California Arthropod specimens in the Illinois Natural History Survey Insect Collection. This work was a part of a larger effort to digitize all California Arthropod museum specimens across the United States. Our game plan was to hire three students to help work on this grant, while training them in entomological collections best practices. In this talk, I will outline the following: workflows needed to complete this task, approaches that were successful, as well as pitfalls, and how we cultivated relationships with students that were interested in natural history collections.