<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>David,<br><br></div>Arctos has an agents table:<br><br><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__arctosdb.org_documentation_agent_&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=XXIPaOFYXJVA0wHv20mdR1pnGONFEyGNnbq1nvQRvBE&s=pvEpbWVttRYrapqznMOv-VokHnRIvRJE8Usu3dGH37c&e=">http://arctosdb.org/documentation/agent/</a><br><br></div>disambiguation of homonymous agents (William Smith) is an issue sometimes. Adding notes about them, including a simple field to indicate if they are alive on a certain date (Alive 2016-02-16) helps to separate them from each other and can be used even when birth & death dates are unknown.<br><br></div>-Derek<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:46 AM, Shorthouse, David <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:davidpshorthouse@gmail.com" target="_blank">davidpshorthouse@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">All,<br>
<br>
For the past several months, I have been experimenting with the<br>
reconciliation of collector and determiner names in digitized specimen<br>
data, using the Canadensys network of aggregated records as a small<br>
case study.<br>
<br>
As you may well know, the Darwin Core terms recordedBy, identifiedBy,<br>
and indeed scientificNameAuthorship contain people names. To my<br>
knowledge, no one has tried to reveal the human effort and the<br>
implicit social networks using content in these terms, perhaps because<br>
the expected content and format of these terms is so under-specified.<br>
Maiden and married names, nicknames, variously abbreviated given<br>
names, etc. are but a few examples that make ad-hoc reconciliation<br>
heuristics & algorithms very difficult to do well. You can explorer my<br>
first, albeit naive experiments at <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__collector.shorthouse.net&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=l4-dQ15l7SFEeJeMGIcnWDPyDO7p7IhxNa2gtk34qho&s=mZIjOrs0Vcy44oRHHM8RA14ALH6lG441BSzX1tdtxkI&e=" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__collector.shorthouse.net&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=l4-dQ15l7SFEeJeMGIcnWDPyDO7p7IhxNa2gtk34qho&s=mZIjOrs0Vcy44oRHHM8RA14ALH6lG441BSzX1tdtxkI&e=</a> .<br>
There's potential here, but the next logical step is to lift this up<br>
to something like a Darwin Core extension such that data managers at<br>
the source have a mechanism to unambiguously link & share each of the<br>
one-to-many, specimen-to-name pairs to human identity.<br>
<br>
I am writing to inquire if anyone knows of any best practices guides<br>
on how museum staff *ought* to record the names of collectors,<br>
determiners, and other agents. Do any of you have an *agents* table in<br>
your database? Have you attempted to link people names in your<br>
specimen databases to their unambiguous identities and, by extension<br>
to their scientific outputs like datasets & papers published? Does<br>
anyone yet record ORCIDs, <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__orcid.org_&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=l4-dQ15l7SFEeJeMGIcnWDPyDO7p7IhxNa2gtk34qho&s=xTk1sgn3JolA6nk4mkV9oxQRdpMuKhWdddwtdnuA8tU&e=" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__orcid.org_&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=l4-dQ15l7SFEeJeMGIcnWDPyDO7p7IhxNa2gtk34qho&s=xTk1sgn3JolA6nk4mkV9oxQRdpMuKhWdddwtdnuA8tU&e=</a> for this purpose? Last,<br>
does the ordering of determiner or collector names on labels contain<br>
any semantic meaning as it does for papers? That's something I have<br>
not yet considered & quite frankly scares me if this is important.<br>
<br>
Hope this generates some discussion,<br>
<br>
David P. Shorthouse<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font size="1"><br>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br>Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects<br>Associate Professor of Entomology<br>University of Alaska Museum<br>907 Yukon Drive<br>Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960<br><br><a href="mailto:dssikes@alaska.edu" target="_blank">dssikes@alaska.edu</a><br><br>phone: 907-474-6278<br>FAX: 907-474-5469<br><br>University of Alaska Museum - search 302,939 digitized arthropod records<br><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.uaf.edu_museum_collections_ento_&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=XXIPaOFYXJVA0wHv20mdR1pnGONFEyGNnbq1nvQRvBE&s=ouquN1XrYWPRWMptmevu5NBIyMahw99xZO2N1XDJ8MQ&e=" target="_blank">http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/</a><br>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br><br>Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological <br>Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at <br><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.akentsoc.org_contact.php&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=XXIPaOFYXJVA0wHv20mdR1pnGONFEyGNnbq1nvQRvBE&s=Zur1MfgdSqH7TAZKRV-7mAo8ZA0tdNr9D4TyQ0QQ4CA&e=" target="_blank">http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php</a><br></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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