[Nhcoll-l] global unique identifiers and natural history collections

[Mark O'Brien]

Reading that whole blog entry gave me a headache.  We have had unique
museum identifiers for many years, starting with printed lists back in the
1960s.    If you dissociate a museum acronym  from a specimen number, it
will cause confusion and perhaps cause more problems.  Let's say that
someone uses a specimen from the UMMZ that has a record number
UMMZI-0023578.  In the resulting publication, it becomes a part of a type
series, and anyone reading that paper would be able to determine (without
even having to go online) that it is from the Univ. Michigan Museum of
Zoology Insect collection.  If it was coded instead with 081-211118-87650
it means nothing without an intermediary decoding via some online portal.
I know the old KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) adage means more now than it
ever did, since people have a tendency to make very complex systems because
they can.
Just my two cents.

Mark

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Robert Guralnick <
Robert.Guralnick at colorado.edu> wrote:

>   Dear List --- I have been curious about something, and hope you
> won't mind taking a moment to at least cogitate (or perhaps even
> respond) with some thoughts.  As digitization efforts continue to ramp
> up in collections, there is clearly an impetus to have global unique
> identifiers on physical specimens and downstream derivates such as
> images, metadata records, etc.   There are a fair number of arguments
> about how to do this, and lots of recommendations etc. One could argue
> there are TOO MANY recommendations and arguments!
>
>  The key question is:  If there was a service that provided you, free
> of charge, with digital object identifiers (DOIs - those global unique
> identifiers associated with publications) that could be associated
> with your specimens, would you use it?
>
> More details on why I am asking (and what we view as a needed "reset"
> on the conversation) can be found in a recent blog post by the
> BiSciCol (pronounced "bicycle" and standing for Biological Science
> Collections Tracker) group:  http://biscicol.blogspot.com/
>
> Appreciate thoughts!  Will summarize here and on the blog!
> Best, Rob
>
> Dr. Rob Guralnick
> Curator and Assoc. Prof.
> CU Museum of Nat. Hist. and Dept. of Ecol. and Evol. Biol.
> University of Colorado, Boulder etc etc etc
> https://sites.google.com/site/robgur/
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> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
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>



-- 

------------------------------------------------------------****

Mark F. O'Brien, Collection Manager****

Insect Division, Museum of Zoology****

The University of Michigan****

1109 Geddes Avenue****

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079****

(734)-647-2199****

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