[NHCOLL-L:2907] Electronic catalogues for natural history collections

[Museo Morbegno]

Dear colleagues and friends,

I write you because I need your help.

You must know that Italian Central Institute for Catalogation and Documentation (ICCD, a governative organization) is working on the definition of the standards for the catalogation of natural history collections.
In practice, they are going to define a catalographic "track" for each one of five different groups of "objects": botanical specimens, zoological specimens, minerals, rocks and fossils. This should bring to the creation of an electronic card made of a lot of fields (everyone with standardized label, size, type, etc.), that should be used to catalogue every specimen (or group of specimens, e.g.: a box with several micro shells collected in the same place and at the same date) of public natural history collections housed in Italy. This will be obligatory by law.

Obviously, several Italian Museums have their own electronic database/catalogues (the first experiences started about 15 years ago), whose purpose is mostly scientific (e.g.: for retrieving data) or managerial (e.g: localization of a specimen inside the building). Now, ICCD wants to apply to the natural history collections the same criteria developed and already used for the catalogation of artistical/historical objects, because they are not able to understand that a frog preserved in liquid is very different from a painting (at the beginning they pretended a photo for each specimen!!!).

For this reason, in near future Italian Museums of Natural History will probably face serious problems.
So, I'd need to know if there is any other country (in Europe or elsewhere) where natural history collections must be catalogued following standards defined by the state, and if it is possible to have these catalographic tracks. Moreover, I wonder if a regolamentation of this matter already exists for UE countries.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Cheers,
Fabio Penati
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Museo Civico di Storia Naturale
Via Cortivacci, 2
23017 Morbegno (Sondrio) Italy
phone/fax +39 0342 612451
e-mail: museo.morbegno at provincia.so.it
web: www.morbegno.it/museo
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