Digitalisation
The digitisation of the scientific collections of the Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History plays a key role in preserving and enhancing the country’s natural heritage.
What is digitisation?
By digitisation, we mean the creation of accessible digital representations of the physical objects held in our various collections, together with all associated information. Digitisation helps preserve unique and often fragile specimens while facilitating access to these resources for researchers at both national and international levels.
Beyond preservation, this approach forms part of a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort to connect open data between institutions. By sharing and linking this information, we weave a genuine network of knowledge—essential for understanding our heritage, studying biodiversity, tracing its evolution, and addressing global environmental challenges.
How do we digitise our collections?
Digitisation begins with the recording, in the museum’s databases, of the information associated with the objects of the collections. The main data include the nature of the object, the name of the collector, the place and date of collection, and the location and conditions of its conservation.
Imaging, whether photography or 3D techniques, is at the heart of this work. High resolution images of the herbarium and its historical specimens allow us to admire species that are now extinct and to better understand the causes of their disappearance. 3D techniques, meanwhile, make it possible to capture the complex shapes and textures of certain fossils and to take precise measurements for scientific purposes from anywhere in the world.
How to consult our collections
The Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl) is a worldwide register of natural history collections, accessible through a dedicated portal. This portal provides international visibility for institutions holding scientific collections and promotes the interconnection of specimen information. Data published by the Museum via the GBIF infrastructure can also be consulted on the GRSciColl portal.
To access the digitised specimens created by the Naturmusée, you may also click here.
The 3D scans of fossils produced by the Museum are available on the Sketchfab platform.