Getting back to the original issue: “focus here is on the catalogue as a directory of known institutions and information required to contact them”
Having a directory of known institutions including contact details is certainly worth achieving, and has been done with Index Herbariorum. We can’t dismiss the worth of such a directory as ‘only being good for those who want to borrow material’. Managing loans, exchanges and sending specimens for destructive testing is a significant part of any collection manager’s duties.
The two points I’d like to add:
- users need to be able to manage their own institution’s information (i.e. the directory needs to be editable)
- if a key use case for the structure of the directory is to support collection managers then ensuring that they are involved making sure that the directory has the fields they need will be important.