About OZCAM

OZCAM is the Online Zoo­log­i­cal Col­lec­tions of Aus­tralian Muse­ums. The aim of OZCAM is to pro­vide online access to a data­base of records aggre­gated from fau­nal col­lec­tions data­bases in Aus­tralian museums.

OZCAM is an ini­tia­tive of the Coun­cil of Heads of Aus­tralian Fau­nal Col­lec­tions (CHAFC), which is the peak body rep­re­sent­ing Australia’s pub­licly acces­si­ble zoo­log­i­cal and palaeon­to­log­i­cal col­lec­tions, pri­mar­ily within the juris­dic­tion of gov­ern­ment at all lev­els (regional, state, ter­ri­tory and commonwealth).

The Sig­nif­i­cance of OZCAM

Not all muse­ums hold bio­di­ver­sity data for the same geo­graphic regions or the same time peri­ods. In aggre­ga­tion, how­ever, their data pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive cov­er­age of Aus­tralian bio­di­ver­sity in space and time.

OZCAM pro­vides the capa­bil­ity to inter­ro­gate the data from all con­tribut­ing muse­ums simul­ta­ne­ously, allow­ing researchers access to an Australia-wide pic­ture for fauna.

The Australia’s Vir­tual Herbar­ium is a com­ple­men­tary site to OZCAM, where queries can be made about the flora of Australia.

Dis­sem­i­nat­ing Aus­tralian fauna data

There are a num­ber of national and inter­na­tional bioin­for­mat­ics projects that har­vest and use OZCAM data. In Aus­tralia, the Atlas of Liv­ing Aus­tralia aims to develop a bio­di­ver­sity data man­age­ment sys­temwhich will link Australia’s bio­log­i­cal knowl­edge with its sci­en­tific and agri­cul­tural ref­er­ence col­lec­tions and other cus­to­di­ans of bio­log­i­cal information.

Inter­na­tion­ally, OZCAM data are avail­able in OBIS, a site estab­lished by the Cen­sus of Marine Life pro­gram to make marine bio­geo­graphic data avail­able on the internet.

OZCAM data are also avail­able in GBIF, the largest and most com­pre­hen­sive aggre­ga­tor of bio­log­i­cal datasets worldwide.

Acknowl­edge­ments

This ver­sion of OZCAM is pro­duced and sup­ported by the Atlas of Liv­ing Aus­tralia (Atlas) on behalf of the Coun­cil of Heads of Aus­tralian Fau­nal Col­lec­tions (CHAFC).

OZCAM is built using stan­dard Atlas com­po­nents and web ser­vices while retain­ing the look and feel of the pre­vi­ous OZCAM. It also retains the tra­di­tional OZCAM focus of list­ing spec­i­mens held in Aus­tralian muse­ums. Advanced ana­lyt­i­cal tools, such as spa­tial analy­sis, are pro­vided through links to Atlas components.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Atlas see ala.org.au.

CHAFC would like to acknowl­edge the assis­tance and sup­port of the Atlas in sup­port­ing OZCAM.

OZCAM is an initiative of the Council of Heads of Australian Faunal Collections (CHAFC)