Jennifer Thomas Division of Entomology University of
Kansas
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Over 10 major releases in 17 years with extensive upgrades and
new features. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation
since 1987. Staff of 8 people attending to programming,
development, conversions, web, DiGIR and user issues.
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Norway Ecuador Colombia (3) Guatemala (2) Mexico Canada (2)
Portugal UK (2) Denmark NewZealand Germany (6) Poland Hungary South
Africa (3) Kenya Malaysia Brazil (9) Venezuela Chile (3) India Peru
Representation of all Natural History disciplines Over 375
collections in 26 countries Over 140 US institutions in 43 states
Over 10 million specimens cataloged Increasing all the time Spain
Australia (6)
Slide 4
Brief History of the SEMC database Capturing historical
specimen data with associated label image Proactive capture
straight from the field Specify 6 Georeferencing tools Sharing data
Specify 6 museum management tools Acknowledgements
Slide 5
Started in FoxPro 1998 Migrated to Specify NSF North
American/Mexican bee project Duplication of collecting events,
localities, collectors 2008 EPSCoR funds to capture SEMC Orthoptera
Launched first effort to clean up/standardize the database Smallest
Table = Agents (~3000 Collectors/Determiners) Collection Event
table most duplication here Solution = Retroactive Collecting Event
#s SK.PadrZ1959.07.23 001 NSF A specimen-level database of the
worlds bees (Apoidea) at the University of Kansas
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Brief History of the SEMC database Capturing historical
specimen data with associated label image Proactive capture
straight from the field Specify 6 Georeferencing tools Web-access
Specify 6 museum management tools The future of Specify 6 for
Entomology
Slide 8
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Within each species, specimens are arranged by collecting
event: Collector Date Locality Elevation, host plant, habitat data
Then barcodes are attached in that order.
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SK.PadrZ1959.07.23 001
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Slide 13
Brief History of the SEMC database Capturing historical
specimen data with associated label image Proactive capture
straight from the field Specify 6 Georeferencing tools Web-access
Specify 6 museum management tools The future of Specify 6 for
Entomology
Slide 14
Slide 15
Brief History of the SEMC database Capturing historical
specimen data with associated label image Proactive capture
straight from the field Specify 6 Georeferencing tools Web-access
Specify 6 museum management tools The future of Specify 6 for
Entomology
Slide 16
Slide 17
Brief History of the SEMC database Capturing historical
specimen data with associated label image Proactive capture
straight from the field Specify 6 Georeferencing tools Sharing Data
Specify 6 museum management tools The future of Specify 6 for
Entomology
Slide 18
KU Biodiversity Institute choose to leverage the GBIF-developed
IPT Ease of mapping Darwin Core concepts Ease of mobilizing data
through IPT to GBIF
http://www.gbif.org/informatics/primary-data/publishing/
Thematic portals InvertNet MaNIS: http://www.manisnet.org
http://www.manisnet.org HerpNET: http://www.herpnet.org
http://www.herpnet.org ORNIS: http://www.ornisnet.org
http://www.ornisnet.org FishNet2: http://www.fishnet2.net
http://www.fishnet2.net GBIF data portal http://portal.gbif.org
Available 4-6 weeks after initial publication
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Brief History of the SEMC database Capturing historical
specimen data with associated label image Proactive capture
straight from the field Specify 6 Georeferencing tools Web-access
Specify 6 museum management tools and security features
Acknowledgements
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Well continue to work with the Specify team to customize our
database. Functionality to allow all types of barcodes
Batch-editing tools like we had in Specify 5 Form customizer Web
interface
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Dr. Michael Engel, Dr. Zack Falin Our CAs - Crystal Maier &
Mabel Alvarado Our Undergrads Erin, Alexa, Shayna, and Dan The
Specify Team Andy Bentley, Theresa Miller, Tim Noble, Rod Spears,
& Jim Beach. Laura Russell KU Informatics programmer, and GBIF
extraordinaire NSF DBI 1057366: A specimen-level database of the
worlds bees (Apoidea) at the University of Kansas PI Dr. Michael
Engel
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Written in Java PC, Mac and LINUX compatible Database agnostic
MySQL Open source all source code available under FOSS (GPL2)
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Collections management platform pluggable components
Multi-collection/discipline capable 3 rd party applications -
GEOLocate, Google Earth Web services and online providers ITIS,
Fishbase, Lifemapper Strategic Partnerships Filtered push
(Harvard), botanical OCR (Michigan), image bank (MorphBank) and DNA
(BCoL) Staged, frequent releases with added functionality smart
update
Slide 27
Many other systems out there KeEmu, Past Perfect, Index
Kentukiensis, Collections Space, Mantis, Multi-Mimsy etc. All have
limitations or cost prohibitions for small to medium sized museums
Cost Flexibility and customization All disciplines * Open source
community driven Wealth of features Support and longevity
