4.3. Technical infrastructures (GOVERNANCE)

Collections Catalogue
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This is topic 4.3. in the Governance section of the Advancing the Catalogue of the World’s Natural History Collections consultation. Use this topic to discuss the questions listed below.

Background
Biodiversity information infrastructures such as GBIF, DiSSCo, iDigBio and other national and regional platforms are usually funded in the context of broader open science goals for research infrastructures. Their participation can provide an important bridge between the needs of the collection communities and funding and expertise for informatics solutions. Roles and responsibilities must however be well defined to ensure that the needs of researchers and user communities are central. It is important to define clearly how these technical infrastructures can best participate in the overall solution, including demonstrating the benefits required to secure sustained funding for an integrated catalogue and for all the component parts.

Other materials

The following contributed materials are particularly relevant to this topic:

Questions

  • What technical infrastructures need to be engaged as part of the solution?
  • How are their roles and needs best balanced with those of the collections and of their communities?
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From @maperalta in these posts in the Spanish thread: post 1, post 2

The technical infrastructure should mainly point to updating and operation of the standardized informatic systems. The possibility of exchanging information among collections should be a priority, and this requires permanently implementing new informatics tools. For example, having a catalogue with geographic references for all natural history collections that constitute the national systems would facilitate toponymy corrections.

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