Data mobilization in the LWS herbarium: success and prospects

Digitization of hosted specimens is a crucial task for all herbaria worldwide and is one of the main streams for today. By digitizing their collections and publishing the datasets, the herbaria grant access to essential data to a wide research audience and, as a result, involve their collections in scientific work more actively. Digitization also allows virtual preservation of the collections, which is especially important in conditions of hostilities, when the entire collection can be destroyed or damaged in one moment. This paper describes two datasets recently published in GBIF in frames of the LWS herbarium digitization initiative. It also contains some considerations about further digitization priorities and plans in the LWS herbarium in the context of complicated war conditions and limited facilities. In total, 2,419 occurrence records from Ukraine mobilized from LWS herbarium were published. These datasets are planned to be dynamic with the addition of new records along with progress of digitization work at LWS. At least 6,000 more records are planned to be published through these datasets in 2024.