Overview of the NMNH Collection Level Index (CLI) National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Tom Hollowell 14 Oct 2014

The Challenge The U.S. National Entomological Collection is huge

The Challenge The U.S. National Entomological Collection is huge 21 million records may be required for complete coverage at the specimen or vial level 19 million records of pinned specimens 1.4 million slides 500,000 fluid 100,000 papered (Odonata) They’re done! Archineura incarnata Euglossa ioprosopa Type Of about 300,000 Specimen records, 38% are Types

Solutions? Summer ,000 Bumblebee specimens imaged in 8 weeks ca. 40 bees per person/hour of specimen handling SI Rapid Capture Pilot Program - Bumblebee Project

Handling, imaging w/ barcode as filename, storage Import, linked to EMu stub Catalog record Published, & to SI Transcription Center The Crowd Resulting details to EMu A big advance! Still, at 5,500/week the entire Entomology collection might be a 60 year project. In the mean time…

There is a need to create basic digital records for broad swaths of the collection A Collection Level Index (CLI) had already been implemented by NHM - London Catalogs and manages lot-level records in EMu Creates an Index record for each distinct taxon Allows entry of geographic distribution lists For each lot, can also include –Specimen counts –Storage locations –Preparation Sex, Stage information

KE analyzed many CLI Model options This last one is essentially the NHM-London Model Model 7

NMNH tried a modification of the NHM model But finally decided to entirely specify our own model

Basic Requirements Workflow for recording Lots as close to typical Specimen entry as practical. Attach taxa and record counts in the Catalog, exactly as for specimen records. Enter distribution lists in the Catalog, in lieu of Collection Event attachment. Summarize distributions, counts and other parameters in a Collection Index record for each taxon, across all qualifying Specimen and Taxonomic Lot records.

The NMNH Model Typical specimen record Distribution data is in Collection Event Taxonomic Lot record Distribution in Catalog Taxon attachment in Catalog Collection Index record Summarizes qualifying Catalog records “Model 8”

The Solution

collections.nmnh.si.edu

Example Photos (currently some Lepidoptera)

Some types of question become easier to answer with CLI “What other countries are Guyana Coleoptera known from?” 30 seconds 12 minutes for all 13,400 taxa from our 7 collecting units, over 11,700,000 specimens

,, A Favorite Taxonomic Lot Record

Thanks to: KE Software Ian Turnbull Grant Smith NMNH Informatics Tom Orrell John Keltner NMNH Department of Entomology Patricia Gentili-Poole Jessica Bird Other Departmental Testers Linda Ward (IZ), Karen Reed (IZ), Craig Ludwig (VZ), Chris Tuccinardi (Botany) CLI - available in EMu-Mu ?