Engagement of volunteers in digitization of biodiversity data at European natural history museums

<< Background >>With this application, the participating organizations had a wish to gather experience on welcoming adult volunteers in transcription/digitization of data from natural history specimens stored at the museums' collections. We wanted to examine the motivation among volunteers who wish to participate and what obstacles volunteers might encounter that may deter some in engaging in volunteering. We wanted the partnering organizations to be attractive partners for a wide section of the population, regardless of age, gender, education or personal beliefs. << Objectives >>With this knowledge, we wanted to produce best practice guidelines for working with volunteers and disseminate these through workshops, written guidelines and European conference talks to museums professionals in Europe. We gained insight and shred experiences on the recruitment and management of volunteers.<< Implementation >>We implemented workshops in Berlin and Aarhus, disseminated the results through conferences and wrote a best-practice guideline for others to be inspired by. We have also gotten in touch with other museums within Europe who are working with volunteers and we are constantly improving our work and sharing experiences.<< Results >>We have integrated a better workflow for managing the volunteers and have, to this day, almost doubbled the number of volunteers engaged at the museum in aarhus, Denmark. The volnteers now represent a broader target group than previousely. We have greatly expanded our network with colleagues across Europe who work with engaging volunteers.