A natural history collection record can belong to more than 1 collection that is registered in GRSciColl. E.g. a plant specimen can be part of a larger Birds collection (following the classification of Systematic Design of a Natural Sciences Collections Digitisation Dashboard), while at the same time belong to the Darwin collection (in the case of the Darwin finches). Would it be possible to assign two (or more) collectionIDs separated by a pipe (or other separator) to the (Darwin finch) records of the corresponding GBIF Birds dataset?
Thanks @nl-bif for opening the discussion. Would the idea be that the same specimen could be linked to different collection pages and be aggregated in different dashboards? In the example that you mentioned, is the Darwin Collection a sub-collection of the Bird Collection?
It would also be interesting to know how common it would be to have the case where one specimen record should be linked to several collections entries.
There may be other use cases, but I do have one, which it seems would apply to any collection that moves into a new institution. The collection from my university (listed correctly as inactive in GRSciColl) is well described in a pair of papers:
- Brief history of and collector's index to the Wabash College Herbarium (WAB), now deposited at The New York Botanical Garden (NY) | Brittonia
- The bryophyte collections of Wabash College Herbarium (WAB) now at the New York Botanical Garden (NY) | Brittonia
The specimens were deaccessioned and moved to NYBG (as noted, and while I was attending the college), but the papers also make clear that some specimens were sent elsewhere. This is not the only collection absorbed by NYBG (e.g. our rival school to the south).
If the inactive collection codes were maintained on specimens alongside their new ones within the new institution, would it be meaningful to be able to assemble a virtual view of the earlier collection? I know similar consolidations went on with former collections in the Netherlands moving to Naturalis, which may be why @nl-bif raised it…
Hi Marie, following Latimer Core you can define many sub-collections. So specimens can belong to more than one collection that is listed under GRSciColl. Another example are thematic collections, e.g. the ethnobotanical collection. It would be great if we can list more than one collectionID for each record separated by a pipe, or any other separator.
Thanks @nl-bif for providing examples. If a specimen belongs to two collections (for example herbarium and ethnobotanical), it would ideally appear in the aggregated metrics of both.
My main question would be, in practise if someone would like to access the specimen, how can they know who they should contact? Would the two collections have the same contacts/responsibility?
@kcopas this is also why I would be hesitant to track the IDs of the past collections in the collectionID field. It should be clear for users who they can contact now about the specimen.
In any case, collectionID is a a Darwin Core term, the changes should likely happen there first: Issues · tdwg/dwc · GitHub