[Nhcoll-l] barcoding pros and cons

Doug Yanega dyanega at ucr.edu
Fri Feb 28 13:28:23 EST 2014


Our entomology collection has had GUID labels for roughly 15 years now, 
and we are one of a few institutions that routinely use both barcode 
GUIDs (thermal transfer 2D) and non-barcode GUIDs (laserjet paper 
labels). As such, I can speak with some confidence about the following 
points of contrast between these two systems:

(1) the thermal-transfer 2D barcode labels are *vastly* more expensive 
and time-consuming to produce than paper labels with a unique 
human-readable number, and with a much greater initial cost of equipment 
(our Sato printer, the same model used at the AMNH, cost over 5000 
dollars, rolls of plastic cost several hundred, and it prints seven 
labels a minute; the HP Laserjet cost 200 dollars, archival paper is 
trivially cheap, and it can print around 8,000 labels a minute)
(2) when used for legacy material, they take up 150% of the space of a 
normal insect label if they are positioned so as to make the 2D barcode 
scannable from above - that means the same number of specimens takes up 
150% more unit trays, drawers, and cabinets, so the entire cost of 
physical storage is multiplied by 150%
(3) the scanner will never make a typo unless the label itself is 
glitched (there is indeed a very small but finite rate of glitches 
during printing, such that occasional barcodes will not scan properly, 
mostly 1 bits turning into 0s, and confounding the scan)
(4) they are less prone to abrasion when dry than paper labels, but far 
more troublesome when kept in ethanol, to the point where I would simply 
never use them for liquid storage (except if taped on the OUTSIDE)
(5) they are very slightly more difficult to cut, and to put pins 
through, or re-pin, but they are better suited for being attached to 
microscope slides

Certain types of routine workflow go faster with barcodes, others go 
slower, and others are the same; specifically (1) inventorying an 
outgoing loan is much faster whenever the specimens already have 
barcodes on them (but not if barcodes are being added to the specimens 
as they are being packed, which is more typical) (2) anything that could 
normally be done by reading labels on specimens in situ in the 
collection takes longer (because the scanning devices aren't wireless, 
requiring you to bring the specimens out of the storage area to the 
scanner location) (3) they are no better during legacy label data entry, 
which is the most common routine activity (if anything, it actually 
takes very slightly longer to stop typing, pick up the scanner, wave it 
over the barcode, wait for the beep, put the scanner down, and resume 
typing, as opposed to simply typing in a 6-digit number manually)

The bottom line for me is this: for our purposes, the contrast between 
barcodes versus human-readable labels generally favors the *latter*, 
especially regarding *points 1 and 2 above*. We operate on a very 
limited budget, and within a finite storage space, so the few 
circumstances where barcodes have the upper hand do not really justify 
the expense. Accordingly, out of some 3 million specimens total, we have 
around 425,000 specimens with paper GUID labels, and about 100,000 with 
barcodes, most of the latter being specimens loaned to us from other 
institutions, or on microscope slides.

To me, personally, for the tasks I do as collection manager, the 
human-readable labels are just fine, and I almost NEVER find myself 
wishing "Boy, it's too bad this batch of specimens doesn't have 
barcodes!". Until and unless one uses both systems side-by-side, the 
contrast will not be obvious; it is easy to conceive how barcodes are 
superior in theory, but in practice their superiority is highly 
context-dependent, and comes with a significant cost. If you find that 
student helpers who are typing in numbers are making more than one error 
per 10,000 records, then it's easier to find better student helpers.

As an aside, I would also caution against over-reliance on GUIDs as 
tracking tools, at least in collections like ours; our primary tracking 
tool is taxonomy, so any specimen databased to taxon will be easily 
found in the collection simply by knowing what it is. If a curator needs 
to shift unit trays (or individual specimens) among drawers or cabinets 
(due to expansion, consolidation, or changes in classification), then 
they can simply do so *without incurring any changes in the database* 
(other than changes in taxon ID, when needed); collections whose 
database tracks the physical location of specimens incur a significant 
workload any time specimens are moved around this way (the more 
fine-scaled the location is recorded, the more work involved). I'd be 
surprised if there are many natural history collections that do NOT 
organize material by taxon, so find it hard to imagine when one would 
ever need a system that fine-scaled.

Sincerely,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20140228/22f03725/attachment.html 


More information about the Nhcoll-l mailing list