[Nhcoll-l] Proposed Dept of Interior regulations pertaining to museum collections

[Doug Yanega]

On 2/25/15 9:42 AM, Ellen Paul wrote:
> However, the ICR raises other issues of concern. If your institution 
> has already accessioned the materials, then how can you submit 
> anything that indicates the item was accessioned into a DOI 
> collection? Will you need to de-accession first?
>
> If you review the full proposed ICR (top document here: 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.reginfo.gov_public_do_PRAViewDocument-3Fref-5Fnbr-3D201412-2D1084-2D001&d=AwIC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=vpuLBBSKneLssf6ZpyhpG5xAZY_ZFdLAmmAnpVU9fFQ&s=mAvxLEWEVtJz4-_uAgCKFwt6I9ygsDjPqRHin-6FQdU&e= ), 
> you will see that is clear that they are talking about accession into 
> a DOI collection, which is consistent with the claim of DOI ownership. 
> It would be inconsistent with that claim of ownership by someone other 
> than your institution to accession an item into your own collection. 
> You would need a DOI accession number and a DOI accession record for 
> each item.
>
FYI: we recently worked with the staff at Joshua Tree National Park on a 
series of "Bioblitzes" during which we collected over 1000 insect 
specimens, almost none of which were identifiable beyond family level 
during the event(s). There were numerous exchanges between us, where 
they requested the standard boilerplate kinds of information, and talked 
about labeling and accession numbers and such, before I was able to 
explain how those regulations don't work for unidentified specimens of 
insects, whose labels are 7 x 15 mm. They eventually agreed to ignore 
that the specimens are not identified, and the compromise we worked out 
regarding labeling and accessioning is this: as a matter of routine, we 
put a globally unique ID number on every specimen as we label it (e.g., 
"UCRC ENT 314695"), and all of these records are in our database. For 
all of the specimens that come from the JTNP events, they insisted on 
giving us unique DOI numbers *anyway*, rather than using our GUIDs; 
these DOI accession numbers are linked ONLY in the database, and there 
are no printed labels added to these specimens. As specimens from among 
this material are IDed, we can report back as to which ones they are, 
cross-referencing the DOI numbers when doing so, in a nice tidy 
spreadsheet output (e.g., UCRC ENT 314695 is also JOTR 33261, now IDed 
as /Diadasia rinconis/ in the spreadsheet). This allows them to get the 
information they want, using their accession numbers, without 
interfering with our curatorial practices. Having multiple "unique" 
numbers on a specimen is certainly difficult if there are physical 
labels involved, and thousands of specimens, but not so hard when in a 
database, so anyone who maintains a database like this should be able to 
add DOI numbers just as easily as we did.

Peace,

-- 
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)
              https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__cache.ucr.edu_-7Eheraty_yanega.html&d=AwIC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=vpuLBBSKneLssf6ZpyhpG5xAZY_ZFdLAmmAnpVU9fFQ&s=cUqEWCB1Ao07T5EJ_k2GD2Cs3i8IOa6Uk14rY1ieEkk&e= 
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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