A collection management system and foundation for research

Hoffman, Christopher R., Doran, Andrew, Moe, Richard, McGrath, Patrick, Mishler, BrentUniversity of California, Berkeley

UC Berkeley’s collection management systems and the BNHM-IST Partnership

Introducing CollectionSpace How to learn more

Specimen Management System for California Herbaria (SMASCH) (University & Jepson

Herbaria) PAHMA Collections (BNHM Consortium, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology) SAGE (UC Botanical Garden) UCMP Specimen Database (BNHM Consortium, UC Museum of Paleontology) Essig Specimen Database (BNHM Consortium, Essig) MVZ/Arctos Specimen Database (BNHM Consortium, MVZ) Biocode Specimen Database (BNHM Consortium) HERC Specimen Database (BNHM Consortium, HERC) History of Art Visual Resource Collection (HAVRC) (Department of History of Art) Slide & Photograph Image Retrieval Online (SPIRO) (Architecture Visual Resources

Library) CineFiles (Pacific Film Archives) Berkeley Language Center’s Archival Catalog & Circulation System (Berkeley Language

Center) Plus … Bancroft Special Collections and many others

Campus supports a broad range of collections, from Art to Zoology, but …

Too many aging legacy systems◦ Millions of objects, artifacts, specimens◦ Managed in about 20 different collection

management systems◦ Running on about 15 hardware platforms◦ Maintained by about 10 different technology

groups, with various degrees of technical experience

Inconsistent decision-making Insufficient and inadequate funding models

in a time when university funding is challenged

Does this sound familiar?

Collection Management

Systems

Taxonomy and Thesauri

Outreach and Data Sharing

Digital Assets and Content

Education

Archives and Libraries

Field Data Collection

Field Station Sensor Network

Exhibitions

Molecular Lab Information

Management

Geospatial Services

CollectionSpace is an open/community-source, web-based software application for the description, management, and dissemination of museum collections

information – from artifacts and archival materials to exhibitions and storage.

http://www.collectionspace.org

http://wiki.collectionspace.org

Web-based Highly customizable Interoperable Local or hosted deployments Communities of practice A platform for sharing collections

information Designed to address the needs of cultural

heritage AND biodiversity natural science collections

Focus on sustainability at all levels & scales Consortial fund-raising Communities, collaboration, and consortia Working with vendors and service providers An emerging foundation-like partnership Exploring boundaries (libraries, archives,

museums) And beyond higher education

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Open source: Java, MySQL, JBoss, jQuery Clean, simple URLs + useful data feeds

(RESTful APIs) Web services (REST) and plugin architecture;

enable data sharing and interoperability Services approach allows re-use across

multiple domain-specific applications Accessible: Works great with keyboard and

assistive technologies

Schema model for a customized service deployment

Herbaria

Herbaria

UCJEPSUCJEPS

Anthro-pologyAnthro-pology

PAHMAPAHMA

DwC

DwC

DwC + + Paleo Extension

+ Cultural Extension

Future: Publish to Cloud

Future: Publish to Cloud

Old/Current Portals: TAPIR, DiGIR,ABCD

Old/Current Portals: TAPIR, DiGIR,ABCD

DwC

The University and Jepson Herbaria

DwC Description

catalogNumber object_number accession.accession_id An identifier (preferably unique) for the record within the data set or collection.

institutionCodecollectionCode responsible_department i.inst_name

The name (or acronym) in use by the institution having custody of the object(s) or information referred to in the record.

collectionCode ?i.inst_name The name, acronym, coden, or initialism identifying the

collection or data set from which the record was derived.

decimalLatitude field_loc_lat_decimalaccession.loc_lat_decimal

The geographic latitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in geodeticDatum) of the geographic center of a Location. Positive values are north of the Equator, negative values are south of it. Legal values lie between -90 and 90, inclusive.

decimalLongitude field_loc_long_decimalaccession.loc_long_decimal

The geographic longitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in geodeticDatum) of the geographic center of a Location. Positive values are east of the Greenwich Meridian, negative values are west of it. Legal values lie between -180 and 180, inclusive.

year monthday

field_collection_date_earliest

accession.early_jdate (calc)

The four-digit year, month, or day in which the Event occurred, according to the Common Era Calendar.

And so on… … … …

Univ. & JepsonHerbariaDwC

CollectionSpace Release 1.0: Summer 2010

Pilot deployments: Ongoing now

CollectionSpace 2.0: July 2010 – November 2011◦ Goals: Stability, usability, and sustainability

◦ Develop the larger consortium for sustainability

UC Berkeley deployments◦ Starting with Anthropology (PAHMA) and Herbaria (UCJEPS) collections

◦ Integrated with CollectionSpace 1.1 through 2.0 planning

◦ Documenting our experience and developing templates for other museums

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<ns2:collectionobjects_naturalhistory xmlns:ns2="http://collectionspace.org/services/collectionobject/domain/naturalhistory" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://collectionspace.org/services/collectionobject/domain/naturalhistory http://collectionspace.org/services/collectionobject/domain/collectionobjects_naturalhistory.xsd">

<fieldLocLongDecimal>-122.019440</fieldLocLongDecimal>

<fieldLocLatDecimal>38.436390</fieldLocLatDecimal>

<catalogDate>Mar 07, 1997</catalogDate>

<fieldLocState>CA</fieldLocState>

<phenology>Flowering/Fruiting</phenology>

<fieldCollectionDateLatest>May 06, 1891</fieldCollectionDateLatest>

<fieldCollectionDateEarliest>May 02, 1891</fieldCollectionDateEarliest>

<fieldLocCounty>Solano</fieldLocCounty>

<fieldLocCountry>USA</fieldLocCountry>

<fieldCollector>W. L. Jepson</fieldCollector>

<fieldCollectionDate>May 2 1891-May 6 1891</fieldCollectionDate>

</ns2:collectionobjects_naturalhistory>

--a108dfc0-5a62-49c9-bbcb-557aace48ddf

label: collectionobjects_common

Content-Type: application/xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<ns2:collectionobjects_common xmlns:ns2="http://collectionspace.org/services/collectionobject" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://collectionspace.org/services/collectionobject http://services.collectionspace.org/collectionobject/collectionobjects_common.xsd">

<otherNumberType>collector number</otherNumberType>

<otherNumber>14079</otherNumber>

<responsibleDepartments>

<responsibleDepartment>university-of-california-herbarium</responsibleDepartment>

</responsibleDepartments>

<objectNumber>UC18876</objectNumber>

<title>Sidalcea keckii Wiggins</title>

<briefDescription>Mounted on Paper</briefDescription>

<dateAssociation>catalog date</dateAssociation>

<comments>North-Western Solano, California</comments>

</ns2:collectionobjects_common>

Campus-wide efficiencies Excellence for core missions True community-source and open-source

solution Consortial community-based approach to

funding and financial sustainability

We would like to:• Learn more about your institution’s needs• Help you gain support for implementation

of CollectionSpace within your organization • Build a sustainable community of users and

contributors

http://www.collectionspace.org

http://wiki.collectionspace.org

https://wikihub.berkeley.edu/display/istds/Berkeley+Natural+History+Museum+and+IST+Partnership