[Taxacom] Showing the importance of natural history collections and the networks they are building

[Roderic Page]

Hi Bob,

Yes, I?m aware of this, I?ve done some work trying to mine these from the literature in BioStor, see e.g. http://iphylo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/gbif-specimens-in-biostor-who-are-top.html

Museum accession numbers have limitations, they aren?t resolvable (given a number, how do I get data for the corresponding specimen?), nor are they always unique (different museums may the same acronym, and the same acronym + number combination may be used in across several collections within the same museum).

The trick, as ever, is to make a system that has worked in the pre-Internet age work as well, if not better, in the Internet age.

The persistence of anything is a function of how much we care about it, and how many resources we have. 

Regards

Rod

On 25 Apr 2014, at 23:27, Bob Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au> wrote:

> Rod Page wrote:
> 
> "But regardless of that, I see citation as the flip side of what really matters, which is provenance. I cite papers to show you where I got an idea/data/evidence from. If you want to know what the evidence is you look at the cited work. So one way to think of this is that by providing stable identifiers for collections/data/specimens, natural history collections enable users to give the provenance of the data they use. In return the collections get a mechanism whereby they can track usage (i.e., data citation)."
> 
> I'm sure Rod is fully aware of this, but natural history collections have been doing this for a very long time. They provide registration (accession) numbers for each specimen lot examined. In my experience those numbers have a life of 20-50 years, after which a completely different number identifies the same specimen lot. I wonder if DOIs will last as long.
> 
> In cases where I've had to track specimens through a number change at a museum, I've used the original collection data: in the publication, on the specimen label and in the museum database. Sometimes I needed all three sets (they sometimes differ) to feel confident I had the right bug under my microscope. I'm not sure that specimen DOIs would make that job any easier.
> -- 
> Dr Robert Mesibov
> Honorary Research Associate
> Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
> School of Agricultural Science, University of Tasmania
> Home contact:
> PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
> (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195



---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

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