Internships and Volunteers

Student interns and community volunteers contribute greatly to the maintanance and expansion of WILLI. These opportunities provide interns and volunteers with valuable skills acquired through individualized training. Interns are not required to have previous experience or specific skills. Enthusiasm and interest in learning new skills are required. For more information about working in the herbarium, please contact the curator.

Intern and Volunteer Activities

Mounting

Interns are instrumental in preparing the thousands of specimens that are accessioned into WILLI's collection annually. Pressed and dried specimens are glued to archival herbarium paper along with labels holding the specimens' identification and collection information. Interns gain an intimate look at the flora of the Southeastern US, and obtain practical experience with archival preparation of natural history collections.

Database

"WILLIdat" is a database currently containing the label data of over 30,000 herbarium specimens. Over 45,000 specimens remain to be entered. Interns provide critical momentum in this valuable work. Databased label data are easily shared with researchers in the fields of conservation, biogeography, systematics, and other disciplines. It also spares specimens from excessive wear from hands-on use. Database interns gain extensive experience popular relational database software and learn skills in data integrity and management that are highly marketable.

Website and Digitization

Opportunities exist for learning and experience related to graphics hardware, software, and web design, as well as exposure to extensive floristic information.

Download a presentation on WILLI and herbaria in general (PowerPoint format).