The Australasian Virtual Herbarium: Tracking data usage and benefits for biological collections

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Globally, natural history collections are focused on digitizing specimens and information and making these data accessible. Usage information on National Herbarium of Victoria data made available through the Atlas of Living Australia and The Australasian Virtual Herbarium (AVH) is analyzed to understand how and by whom herbarium data are being used. METHODS: Since 2010, AVH data usage information has been gathered from users and supplied to data custodians as a spreadsheet that includes number of download events, number of records downloaded, and user reasons for downloading data in predefined categories. RESULTS: Since 2010, in excess of 268,000 download events of 194 million records (excluding testing events) have been recorded for the National Herbarium of Victoria data set. This means, on average, every record has been downloaded 220 times in the past nine years. Data use grew continuously from 2010 to 2015 but decreased in 2016 due to fewer ecological projects. DISCUSSION: Data have primarily been used for ecological research, but there is an emerging trend for use in education including citizen science projects. Information about data use demonstrates relevance to funding agencies and helps inform the development of collections and prioritization of resources when digitizing material.