[NHCOLL-L:1662] Creating digital images of specimens and linking to a database

[Brad Hubley]

Hello all and sorry in advance to those seeing this on both mailing lists;

Our museum is about to engage in a process of digitizing some of our objects.  One of our IT gurus has asked me to help him solve a problem.  It goes something like this:

Take a grasshopper that has been catalogued into our database (and assigned a unique specimen number) and photograph it.

Create another database consisting of digital images.  Incorporate the image of the grasshopper into the database as well as all of its metadata, e.g. size of image, resolution, etc.

Now comes the problem.  Our photography staff will photograph the specimen, develop the film, digitize the image (or just snap a digital image of the specimen) and then pass it onto the person entering the information into the digitization database.  The individual entering this metadata doesn't know the specimen number of this image since it was not provided to them by the photographer.   Even though the two databases will be linked by specimen number, the problem remains, if one doesn't transfer the specimen number along with the digital image to the cataloguer, how will they know what is the image's corresponding specimen number?  

Apparently this is not a problem for the Arts & Archaeology side of things here, since they are basically dealing with one of kind objects, whereas we can have multiples of the same object (species).  Or conversely, we could send down one-hundred different specimens of different species, each with its own specimen number for the creation of a digital image.

Are there digital cameras that allow one to create a memo  (text or voice) with the image that could be downloaded directly into one's database?  Does anyone have in place, procedures to ensure that the specimen number for a data based insect travels with its digital image to a cataloguer to facilitate entry into a database?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks
Brad


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  Brad Hubley
  Entomology Collection Manager
  Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology 
  Royal Ontario Museum
  100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario           
  Canada    M5S 2C6

  Phone:  1-416-586-5764 
  FAX:      1-416-586-5553 
  email:  bradh at rom.on.ca 
  Visit our website at: http://www.rom.on.ca/ontario/ 

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