XVI International Botanical Congess

The New York Botanical Garden's collection of plant and fungal specimens is a vital repository of data for the international scientific community. Because of the size and importance of its collections the Garden is creating sophisticated collections management system call CASSIA. By employing relational database technology and a user-friendly graphic user interface (via Oracle), we are building a botanical information system that provides the complete range of functions that researchers and herbarium staff now need in order to fully manage and use the Garden's holdings. The new system will organize and integrate vast amounts of complex botanical data, answer researchers' increasingly sophisticated questions, and facilitate sharing our data with other institutions. It will accommodate Structured Query Language and allow Internet access to the data.