[Nhcoll-l] federal specimens in non-federal museums and collections

[Carrie A. Eaton]

Hi all,
My sincere apologies that some of you were not able to edit the Google document<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ma04XRnXpqSiGWMKdXmcRVWGB9nw8q7H6NGyoO6PpJQ/edit?usp=sharing> I sent out earlier today. I have double checked the permissions and we should be good to go for edits now. On behalf of the whole SPNHC Federal Collections committee, thank you so much for your input!
all the best,
Carrie

Carrie Eaton, Museum Curator (she/hers)
UW Geology Museum
1215 West Dayton Street
Madison, WI 53706
608.262.4912
www.geologymuseum.org<http://www.geologymuseum.org>
instagram @uwgeologymuseum
facebook.com/uwgeologymuseum

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Carrie A. Eaton
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2024 10:14 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] federal specimens in non-federal museums and collections

Hi all,
As a co-chair of the SPNHC Federal Collections sessional committee, I ask for your participation in a brief information gathering project. We are collecting the vocabularies that natural history collections use in denoting the ownership of federal specimens housed in their collections. For more information on the objective of this effort, I've included a snippet of our 2023 SVP poster on the matter below. For the tl;dr crowd - please contribute your vocabularies to this Google Doc<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ma04XRnXpqSiGWMKdXmcRVWGB9nw8q7H6NGyoO6PpJQ/edit?usp=sharing__;!!Mak6IKo!KaM4pESDbHPJ_5Z-_3sMhhfXiWGifJ7uctYdrp4NSu9b5MBBApLjeY7yvKuzhCqVB4Za41p5NIt7siHB2whBdXgkRC3S$> (it will hopefully be pretty self-explanatory!).

We've discussed and solicited input from the Paleo Data Working Group and would now greatly appreciate hearing from all who manage federal specimens in non-federal repositories. We are in the very preliminary stages of exploring this, so we're open to your feedback and suggestions. You can add your comments to the Google doc linked above. If you work for an institution that won't allow Drive access then please feel free to email them to myself and the other Federal Collections committee co-chairs Janaki Krishna (jkrishna at nhmu.utah.edu<mailto:jkrishna at nhmu.utah.edu>)  and Greg Liggett (gliggett at blm.gov<mailto:gliggett at blm.gov>).

The why:
Generally, federal status of specimens is not being shared with aggregators, but including this information could benefit researchers and the agencies ultimately responsible for management of the resources. The SPNHC Federal Collections Committee considered how federal status might be indicated in aggregator records (e.g., using the Darwin Core metadata standard), and investigated the potential use of the DwC:ownerInstitutionCode term which, in fact, was intended to convey this type of information.  Current usage of the term is highly heterogeneous, and there is no standardized vocabulary for indicating management by a specific federal agency.  The committee is planning to work with federal agencies, NFRs, and Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) to develop a recommended vocabulary that can be used with the DwC:ownerInstitutionCode term to indicate management by federal agencies in a human and machine-readable way. Following development and initial adoption, the committee will petition aggregators to make the ownerInstitutionCode term queryable.

And here is a pdf version of our 2023 SVP Poster "CASE STUDIES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF FEDERAL PALEONTOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/drive.google.com/file/d/1deWmGzW5RlBwbtJaeIFMM9WrMhVdYCo3/view?usp=sharing__;!!Mak6IKo!KaM4pESDbHPJ_5Z-_3sMhhfXiWGifJ7uctYdrp4NSu9b5MBBApLjeY7yvKuzhCqVB4Za41p5NIt7siHB2whBdTu9sqMU$>" (now with fully functional QR code!)

many thanks,
Carrie Eaton
Carrie Eaton, Museum Curator (she/hers)
UW Geology Museum
1215 West Dayton Street
Madison, WI 53706
608.262.4912
www.geologymuseum.org<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.geologymuseum.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KaM4pESDbHPJ_5Z-_3sMhhfXiWGifJ7uctYdrp4NSu9b5MBBApLjeY7yvKuzhCqVB4Za41p5NIt7siHB2whBdRufKg29$>
instagram @uwgeologymuseum
facebook.com/uwgeologymuseum

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