The ‘Big Five’ Meeting Anna L Weitzman, PhD Informatics Manager

An aside about “Big” Largest Institutional Natural History Collections (ranked by # of specimens, in millions, approximate) recent biologyall National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC83126 The Natural History Museum, London6083 Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris5965 Harvard University Museums, Massachusetts26?? American Museum of Natural History, New York21?? Humboldt Museum, Berlin21?? Bishop Museum, Honolulu20.5?? Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago19.6?? Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia18.5?? Zoological Institute, St Petersburg15?? ______________________________________________________________________ Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew12? Missouri Botanical Garden8? New York Botanical Garden6?

NMNH collections are actively studied. During FY 2001: 3,580,639 specimens were out on loan 15,235 visitor days were spent in the collections 590,400 visits were made to web-available collections databases (16% of NMNH electronic collections data were available on the web in FY 2001) NMNH collections grow by 200, ,000 specimens annually NMNH Collections: use and growth

Possible Objectives Discussing and agreeing to shared interests / needs and how to encourage KE to meet them. Leveraging our collection improvement funds by collaborating on KE EMu changes Getting to know each other better and discussing the successes and problems that we have (best practice for retrospective data capture, ensuring data quality). Interest in attempting to standardize our fields, screens, data to the extent possible--by discipline, or more generally? Forward looking recommendations, e.g., networked or shared authority lists/files georeferencing, gazetteers, recommendations for standards

Possible Objectives how to share data amongst ourselves and the world, including discussions of modeling the data and tools in such a way that we can better support biodiversity studies The user experience for global data searching, e.g., use cases, identify constituents related standards and activities of related groups (GBIF, BioCASE, TDWG..., standards such as Darwin2, ABCD, SDD, the emerging taxonomic names standard, TaXMLit) Develop a specification for standard data import schema gateway for bulk loading of data into KE EMu Rights, permissions, credit, security

Attendees AMNH –Barbara Brown –Linda Ford –Richard Monk –Tom Trombone FMNH: –Bill Barnett –Robert Lücking –Joanna McCaffrey KE: –Andrew Brown NHM: –Jayne Dunn –Graham Higley (regrets) NMNH: –Dennis Hasch –DucPhong Nguyen (Ducky) –Beth Strohmayer –Anna Weitzman NYBG: –Emily Ashley –Tony Kirchgessner –Heather Rolen –Barbara Thiers –Melissa Tulig YPM: –Larry Gall –Mary Ann Turner

Outcomes A statement of intent drafted by Jayne Dunn has been circulated to the group for comment. A MoU drafted by Bill Barnett, Barbara Thiers, and Anna Weitzman has been circulated to institutional leads for comment and then for signature at the appropriate level in each institution. An area on the NMNH portal site has been set up for the group to share screen shots, proposals, information, reports, etc. The group decided that there were a fairly small set of priorities that all agreed upon and we agreed on different ways to approach them.

Outcomes The group agreed to set up 3 formal working groups to work on specific topics. YPM and AMNH are invited (and encouraged) to nominate a member to each of these groups if they choose. We may also invite interested parties from other EMu customers. In each case, the group should nominate someone to coordinate and be a spokesperson. Taxonomy module Group Anna Weitzman, NMNH Robert Lücking, FMNH Melissa Tulig, NYBG Darrell Siebert, NHM Transaction module Group Beth Strohmayer, NMNH Joanna McCaffrey, FMNH Barbara Thiers, NYBG Paul Davis, NHM Web Group (including DiGIR, etc) Dennis Hasch, NMNH Joanna McCaffrey, FMNH Tony Kirchgessner, NYBG Jayne Dunn, NHM

Outcomes We also agreed that the following topics are priorities: Combining Collection Events data in either the Catalogue (AMNH) or the Sites (NMNH) module Redesign of Lat/Long and Mapping tabs Use of External Authority files with EMu. Trial with Alexandria Digital Library's Gazetteer Import--NMNH plans and has funding for two simple prototypes Reports--Information will be posted by all on the NMNH portal. Best practice for data cleanup before and after migration. Conservation Module. An informal group will discuss this Discipline specific groups. While this was discussed, no specific conclusions were reached or groups set up. The larger group will start to discuss and set up groups as needed, especially in light of the plans for migration in various museums. Entomology and Mineralogy top the NHM list of priorities and NMNH, at least, is interested in working with them on these.