[Nhcoll-l] federal specimens in non-federal museums and collections

Fri Mar 22 11:23:10 EDT 2024

Your google doc is tricky to fill out for our collections. Most of our
federal specimens came to us a long time ago, and previous staff and
volunteers entered data in a variety of ways. Often there is no obvious way
of knowing if something is from federal land. When we do have all the data,
we keep the acronym and number that came with the specimen (as someone
posted on the google doc), for example, BIBE numbers are used by Big Bend.
We place those numbers in a separate "Other numbers" column. For BLM land
we use the acronym "BLM" and include the permit information when possible.
We want to keep specific locality data off of the aggregators, but instead
have to keep all data from particular counties that are known to be on NPS
land. BLM specimens can be even trickier. The agencies also have little to
go on when searching for their own specimens. They don't have our numbers
(sometimes they don't even have theirs), and we don't always have theirs,
and it was so long ago that neither of us have a clue as to what to look
for. The MOUs have often been lost and it takes some sleuthing between both
us and them to figure out what is what. We have created a jurisdiction drop
down list in our Specify database locality table that includes Federal,
International, and a couple of others, and we update data whenever we find
things, but it is a very long process, and definitely not even close to
being accurate currently. It would be nice to be able to add data from
these specimens to the aggregators without giving out
sensitive information, and kudos to you for trying to come up with
standards. ---Liath

Liath Appleton
Collections Manager
Non-Vertebrate Paleontology Lab
Jackson School Museum of Earth History
University of Texas at Austin

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 4:15 PM Carrie A. Eaton <carrie at geology.wisc.edu>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My sincere apologies that some of you were not able to edit the Google
> document
> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ma04XRnXpqSiGWMKdXmcRVWGB9nw8q7H6NGyoO6PpJQ/edit?usp=sharing>
> I sent out earlier today. I have double checked the permissions and we
> should be good to go for edits now. On behalf of the whole SPNHC Federal
> Collections committee, thank you so much for your input!
> all the best,
>
> Carrie
>
>
>
> Carrie Eaton, Museum Curator (she/hers)
>
> UW Geology Museum
>
> 1215 West Dayton Street
>
> Madison, WI 53706
>
> 608.262.4912
>
> *www.geologymuseum.org <http://www.geologymuseum.org>*
>
>
> *instagram @uwgeologymuseum facebook.com/uwgeologymuseum
> <http://facebook.com/uwgeologymuseum>*
>
>
>
> *From:* Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> * On Behalf Of *Carrie
> A. Eaton
> *Sent:* Thursday, March 21, 2024 10:14 AM
> *To:* nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> *Subject:* [Nhcoll-l] federal specimens in non-federal museums and
> collections
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> As a co-chair of the SPNHC Federal Collections sessional committee, I ask
> for your participation in a brief information gathering project. We are
> collecting the vocabularies that natural history collections use in
> denoting the ownership of federal specimens housed in their collections.
> For more information on the objective of this effort, I’ve included a
> snippet of our 2023 SVP poster on the matter below. For the tl;dr crowd –
> please contribute your vocabularies to this Google Doc
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ma04XRnXpqSiGWMKdXmcRVWGB9nw8q7H6NGyoO6PpJQ/edit?usp=sharing__;!!Mak6IKo!KaM4pESDbHPJ_5Z-_3sMhhfXiWGifJ7uctYdrp4NSu9b5MBBApLjeY7yvKuzhCqVB4Za41p5NIt7siHB2whBdXgkRC3S$>
> (it will hopefully be pretty self-explanatory!).
>
> We’ve discussed and solicited input from the Paleo Data Working Group and
> would now greatly appreciate hearing from *all* who manage federal
> specimens in non-federal repositories. We are in the very preliminary
> stages of exploring this, so we’re open to your feedback and suggestions.
> You can add your comments to the Google doc linked above. If you work for
> an institution that won’t allow Drive access then please feel free to email
> them to myself and the other Federal Collections committee co-chairs Janaki
> Krishna (jkrishna at nhmu.utah.edu)  and Greg Liggett (gliggett at blm.gov).
>
> *The why*:
> Generally, federal status of specimens is not being shared with
> aggregators, but including this information could benefit researchers and
> the agencies ultimately responsible for management of the resources. The
> SPNHC Federal Collections Committee considered how federal status might be
> indicated in aggregator records (e.g., using the Darwin Core metadata
> standard), and investigated the potential use of the
> DwC:ownerInstitutionCode term which, in fact, was intended to convey this
> type of information.  Current usage of the term is highly heterogeneous,
> and there is no standardized vocabulary for indicating management by a
> specific federal agency.  The committee is planning to work with federal
> agencies, NFRs, and Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) to develop a
> recommended vocabulary that can be used with the DwC:ownerInstitutionCode
> term to indicate management by federal agencies in a human and
> machine-readable way. Following development and initial adoption, the
> committee will petition aggregators to make the ownerInstitutionCode term
> queryable.
>
> And here is a pdf version of our 2023 SVP Poster “CASE STUDIES IN THE
> MANAGEMENT OF FEDERAL PALEONTOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
> THE FUTURE
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/drive.google.com/file/d/1deWmGzW5RlBwbtJaeIFMM9WrMhVdYCo3/view?usp=sharing__;!!Mak6IKo!KaM4pESDbHPJ_5Z-_3sMhhfXiWGifJ7uctYdrp4NSu9b5MBBApLjeY7yvKuzhCqVB4Za41p5NIt7siHB2whBdTu9sqMU$>”
> *(now with fully functional QR code!)*
>
> many thanks,
>
> Carrie Eaton
>
> Carrie Eaton, Museum Curator (she/hers)
>
> UW Geology Museum
>
> 1215 West Dayton Street
>
> Madison, WI 53706
>
> 608.262.4912
>
> *www.geologymuseum.org
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.geologymuseum.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KaM4pESDbHPJ_5Z-_3sMhhfXiWGifJ7uctYdrp4NSu9b5MBBApLjeY7yvKuzhCqVB4Za41p5NIt7siHB2whBdRufKg29$>*
>
>
> *instagram @uwgeologymuseum facebook.com/uwgeologymuseum
> <http://facebook.com/uwgeologymuseum>*
>
>
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