The US Virtual Herbarium project is promoting digitization (imaging+databasing+georeferencing) of all the ~90 million specimens in the 600+ herbaria within the US and providing integrated access to the resulting information. The ability to access such a wealth of information will be of evident benefit to researchers and land managers. Less evident but equally important is the impact it will have, indeed is having, on student education and recognition of the value of natural history collections. This is particularly true for smaller herbaria and those responsible for them.  Being an integral and significant part of a national enterprise helps curators and affiliates 1) gain recognition for the effort that goes into maintaining a collection, 2) integrate the development and use of biodiversity resources into undergraduate education and 3) contribute to the development of the next generation of biodiversity researchers. At scales from local to national, it is critical that we recognize, recruit, and involve the entire curatorial community, to ensure that all those involved are aware of the need to adhere to international standards in recording and submitting information and the tools available for this. It is also important to create tools that will enable diverse individuals to make use of the collective dataset. The session will be run as an open discussion. Topics that will be addressed include possible solutions to the impediments herbaria face in trying to become more accessible, identification of new collaborations, and developing an effective mechanism for herbaria to contribute to and interact with iDigBio, the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections.