USE AND LENDING ACTIVITY
The lending of collection specimens makes collections from around the world available to researchers at their home institutions.
WHAT DOES LUOMUS LEND AND TO WHAT EXTENT?
In 2019–2020, Luomus sent out more than 15 203 specimens to Finnish and international recipients in 219 batches (Table 7). As in previous years, the most requested specimens were from the insect collections, from which around 12 000 specimens in total were sent out on loan during these two years.
Virtual lending
Thanks to developments in photographing techniques, some of the loans can be replaced by virtual loans (see Advancements in digitisation). The reporting of virtual lending activities started in 2020. A virtual loan is a digitised specimen or a specimen that is being digitised by request. The digitised specimen and its details are then sent to the researcher online. Digitalisation makes it possible to protect the most valuable specimens from damage. The virtual loans sent in 2020 Luomus included lichens (14 specimens, 4 batches), vertebrates (20 specimens, 1 batch), insects (296 specimens, 25 batches) and other invertebrates (1 specimen, 1 batch).
Visits to the collections
Sometimes examining digitised collections or loaning specimens is not enough for a researcher. For this reason, Luomus welcomes many visiting researchers every year. In 2019 Luomus hosted 60 visiting researchers and the following year 26 (Table 8). The number of researcher visits reflects the extent of use of the collections. The corona virus pandemic in 2020 reduced the number of visits from abroad, and many visits were cancelled.
