[Nhcoll-l] global unique identifiers and natural history collections

[Bentley, Andrew Charles]

Mark

The GUID would not replace the traditional catalog number and collection code but would augment it.

Andy

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 Andy Bentley
 Ichthyology Collection Manager
 University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
 Dyche Hall
 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
 Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
 USA

Tel: (785) 864-3863
Fax: (785) 864-5335
 Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>

SPNHC President-Elect
http://www.spnhc.org<http://www.spnhc.org/>

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From: Mark O'Brien <mfobrien at umich.edu<mailto:mfobrien at umich.edu>>
Date: Monday, October 15, 2012 8:27 AM
To: "nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>" <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] global unique identifiers and natural history collections

Reading that whole blog entry gave me a headache.  We have had unique museum identifiers for many years, starting with printed lists back in the 1960s.    If you dissociate a museum acronym  from a specimen number, it will cause confusion and perhaps cause more problems.  Let's say that someone uses a specimen from the UMMZ that has a record number UMMZI-0023578.  In the resulting publication, it becomes a part of a type series, and anyone reading that paper would be able to determine (without even having to go online) that it is from the Univ. Michigan Museum of Zoology Insect collection.  If it was coded instead with 081-211118-87650 it means nothing without an intermediary decoding via some online portal.   I know the old KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) adage means more now than it ever did, since people have a tendency to make very complex systems because they can.
Just my two cents.

Mark

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Robert Guralnick <Robert.Guralnick at colorado.edu<mailto:Robert.Guralnick at colorado.edu>> wrote:
  Dear List --- I have been curious about something, and hope you
won't mind taking a moment to at least cogitate (or perhaps even
respond) with some thoughts.  As digitization efforts continue to ramp
up in collections, there is clearly an impetus to have global unique
identifiers on physical specimens and downstream derivates such as
images, metadata records, etc.   There are a fair number of arguments
about how to do this, and lots of recommendations etc. One could argue
there are TOO MANY recommendations and arguments!

 The key question is:  If there was a service that provided you, free
of charge, with digital object identifiers (DOIs - those global unique
identifiers associated with publications) that could be associated
with your specimens, would you use it?

More details on why I am asking (and what we view as a needed "reset"
on the conversation) can be found in a recent blog post by the
BiSciCol (pronounced "bicycle" and standing for Biological Science
Collections Tracker) group:  http://biscicol.blogspot.com/

Appreciate thoughts!  Will summarize here and on the blog!
Best, Rob

Dr. Rob Guralnick
Curator and Assoc. Prof.
CU Museum of Nat. Hist. and Dept. of Ecol. and Evol. Biol.
University of Colorado, Boulder etc etc etc
https://sites.google.com/site/robgur/
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--

------------------------------------------------------------

Mark F. O'Brien, Collection Manager

Insect Division, Museum of Zoology

The University of Michigan

1109 Geddes Avenue

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079

(734)-647-2199

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