| Abstract | Small, regional collections face particular challenges in managing and publishing their data due to resource and staff limitations. Nonetheless, biodiversity data in these collections have significant value for society, especially if widely available for research, education, and conservation. Furthermore, broad publication of data helps in the recognition and therefore sustainability of such collections. Arctos (http://arctosdb.org) provides a robust, web-based, collaborative, and cost-efficient solution for managing and publishing data in collections of all sizes. Currently, Arctos serves over 2.1 million records from 24 institutions and 78 collections. Collection sizes range from 1 to over 264K specimens, with 52% of the collections having <10K specimens. In addition to integrating access to diverse types of data and collections (e.g., vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, fossils, hosts and parasites, media, field notes), key features include collection-management and object tracking applications, projects and publications that track specimen usage, mapping tools, and partnerships with external web resources (e.g., GenBank). Records are published to biodiversity data portals such as VertNet, GBIF, and iDigBio. Arctos is co-managed by three large institutions but welcomes data from collections of all sizes, and provides services to help migrate and publish those data. All data are housed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and thus collection staff do not need to worry about servers, backups, or other technical support needs. Users form a strong community that contribute to data standards, application enhancements, and improved data quality. The collaborative, cost-efficient, and cross-disciplinary features make Arctos unique and well-suited for collections of all sizes and types
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