That's a great question.
Digitizing the collection takes different components. First is having the IT infrastructure that will support the volume of data we're creating and so we recently made some investments in our IT infrastructure to have the storage room to house all the data we are digitizing. We will need to continue to do so.
The second is having a robust database system that can hold all the data. Our old system is currently being converted to a new system; one that is suited to a natural history collection, and then one that is user-friendly enough that we can push the data out into user-friendly systems that allow anyone to download data about our collection.
The third is the people time to input the data into the system. That is our challenge and has been our challenge. We have a 14.6 million specimen collection that is broken down into 3.25 million lots. A jar of parasites is a single lot filled with 2,000 specimens, and so you get the sense of the ratios. I don't know why I chose parasites, but there it is.
We have about 825,000 of 3.25 million specimens now digitized, but that doesn't mean they are available for every individual, because the download, the collections online system, is one that will also need to be updated on a continuous basis. Our IT department, led by Charles as our VP of corporate services, is looking at how we ensure that the database management system we're putting all our specimen data on can also be converted and fed into the user-friendly system.
It's an ongoing challenge. We're throwing $60,000 a year at it. At that rate it would take us a hundred years to digitize the rest of the collection. We recognize that, and it keeps growing because scientists keep collecting more stuff.