[Nhcoll-l] Unique IDs for museum objects versus specimens

[Callomon,Paul]

One problem with such “cascading” numbers is the high likelihood of errors in earlier, non-digital work. We have about 460,000 catalog numbers in our mollusk collection, so none is larger than six digits. Over two thirds were generated before computers came into use, and over the years thousands of duplicate numbers (different records with the same number) have been created. Nowadays we are working out of a single database, so there are safeguards against this kind of error, but finding and fixing the existing duplicates will take years.

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology, Invertebrate Paleontology and General Invertebrates
________________________________
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
callomon at ansp.org<mailto:callomon at ansp.org> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170



From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Lena Hernandez
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 9:05 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Unique IDs for museum objects versus specimens

My Natural Science Collection is relatively small, so I haven’t run into this problem there, but in our History Collection we have a similar issue with portfolios and the like. The way it is dealt with there is the set as a whole gets a number say 2014.13 (transaction number, 13th transaction of 2014)then an object number 2014.13.1 (first object of transaction 2014.13) and then if it is something like a portfolio is can be broken down further 2014.13.1.3 (third photo of portfolio 2014.13.1) or alternatively 2014.13.1A-C (first object of 2014.13, three parts).  Perhaps you can use something similar, the parent number is always there and you can see how far down the line this object came out as well as what it came from more recently.

To use Dean’s example.

2014.13- Dredge Material
2014.13.1-jar o’ crustacea
2014.13.1.1-single crustacean from the jar o’ crustacean
2014.13.1.1A-D- four parasitic crustacea from your single crustacean
Or alternatively (Just make sure you are consistent in which way you parse it out)
2014.13.1.1.1- first parasitic crustacea from your single crustacean


I hope that make sense, I‘m a bit tired this morning and my brain is not yet up to full speed.

Lena


Lena Hernandez
Collections Manager/Registrar

Museum of Science & History
1025 Museum Circle
Jacksonville, FL 32207
(904)396-6674 x212
lhernandez at themosh.org<mailto:lhernandez at themosh.org>

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Dean Pentcheff
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 9:12 PM
To: Colin Favret
Cc: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Unique IDs for museum objects versus specimens

This is an issue that I've raised in the past with the Specify team (and plan to raise again in the near future — fair warning, guys :)

The precipitating example for us comes from marine specimens. Often an unsorted jar of material will arrive (e.g. from a dredge sample) to be cataloged in the collection — this unsorted lot should get a unique ID — it may be around for years before it's touched. Then we may pull out (for example) all the crustacea into another jar. This partly-sorted lot also needs a unique ID (it may go to a different room under different staff, so just keeping it with the original jar is not an option). Then we may pull out a single individual, identify it, and use that in a publication, so that, too, needs an ID. A visiting researcher then examines that individual and pulls off parasitic crustacea, identifying each and putting them into individual vials, each of which needs an ID. Etc.

What we have is a clear hierarchical branching parent-child relationship from the initial unsorted lot down to the individual parasites (and their parasites, and their molecular derivatives, etc.). Logically, the way to accommodate this is to have any "thing" in the collection identified with a unique ID. Any derived or subsorted "thing" gets another unique ID and (and this is critical) is linked to its parent so that all the information from the parent (and on up the chain to the top) is immediately available via any "child" ID.

Every "thing" gets a first-class ID (no sub-IDs or a limited list of "preps" from an initial object). Key to the concept is retaining the parent-child-grandchild-... chain. At any moment, one should be able to retrieve any ID's entire chain of parents (and their associated data), or any ID's entire chain of derived children (and their associated data).

It is a mystery to me why this scheme is not the standard model for  specimen databases where there is a habit of creating chains of derivatives over time. There certainly are implementation details that need careful consideration (for example with propagation of data down the chain, how "locked" that propagation is, and how to handle things that get completely subdivided so they no longer exist as such, but whose data must persist), but it seems like a very clean, very flexible base model.

-Dean
--
Dean Pentcheff
pentcheff at gmail.com<mailto:pentcheff at gmail.com>
dpentche at nhm.org<mailto:dpentche at nhm.org>

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 4:01 PM, Colin Favret <ColinFavret at aphidnet.org<mailto:ColinFavret at aphidnet.org>> wrote:
Has anyone dealt with the distinction between issuing unique IDs (for labels and database records) for museum objects versus specimens? A case in point might be a microscope slide with 100 specimens on it (or a jar, envelope, etc.). These specimens can be of multiple taxa, different sexes, life stages, etc. I believe most collections label the museum object (slide, jar, envelope, etc.) with a unique identifier and then treat the specimens as a lot, but this doesn't fully parse out the data associated with the various specimens in a specimen database.

I've developed my own solution (unique ID label for the object, decimal numbers but no label for the individual specimens or specimen lots - e.g. INST123456 for the slide, INST123456.001 for the first specimen lot, INST123456.002 for the second, etc.).

But I'm wondering what others have done or if there is anything out there approaching an industry standard.

Thanks for your input!

Colin

Colin Favret
Université de Montréal
Favret.AphidNet.org<http://favret.aphidnet.org/>

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