University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

![Logo](http://lh6.ggpht.com/-p6BlPDVHDmw/UPUpIYqbgPI/AAAAAAAACYQ/OUFwgIcW6tM/logo.png?imgmax=800 "logo.png"){border="0"
width="200" height="61" style="float:right;"}The [Integrated Digitized
Biocollections (iDigBio)](http://www.idigbio.org/) project aims to
advance digitising US biodiversity collections. They recently published
a [GUID Guide for Data
Providers](https://www.idigbio.org/content/guid-guide-data-providers).
In the [PDF
document](https://www.idigbio.org/sites/default/files/iDigBioGuidGuideForProviders_v1.pdf)
I read this:  

> It has been agreed by the iDigBio community that the identifier
> represents the digital record (database record) of the specimen **not
> the specimen itself**. Unlike the barcode that would be on the
> physical specimen, for instance, the GUID uniquely represents the
> digital record only. (**emphasis added)**

  
My heart sank. There\'s nothing wrong with having identifiers for
metadata (apart from inviting the death spiral that is metadata about
metadata), but surely the key to integrating specimens with other
biodiversity data is to have **globally unique identifiers for the
specimens**.  
  
Now, identifiers for metadata can be useful. For example, there is a
specimen of *Parathemisto japonica* in the National Museum of Natural
History, Smithsonian Institution with the label \"USNM 100988\". The
NMNH web site has a [picture of the index card for this
specimen](http://collections.mnh.si.edu/search/iz/search.php?action=10&irn=65697&width=787&height=469):  
  
![Search
php](http://lh5.ggpht.com/-hcWhBBIlK5w/UPUpKIdvTNI/AAAAAAAACYY/JMFZBSgdkss/search.php.jpg?imgmax=800 "search.php.jpg"){style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;"
border="0" width="450" height="268"}  
  
This is an image of the metadata, not the specimen itself. We could link
the metadata to this image, but of course we also want to link it to the
actual specimen.  
  
Specimens are the things we collect, preserve, dissect, measure,
sequence, photograph, and so on. I want to link a specimen to the
sequences that have been obtains from that specimen, I want to [list the
publications that cite that
specimen](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/02/linking-gbif-and-biodiversity-heritage.html),
I want to be able to aggregate data on a specimen from multiple sources,
I want to be able to add annotations including misidentifications,
[simple
typos](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/03/yet-more-reasons-to-have-specimen.html),
or [missing
georeferencing](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/02/linking-gbif-and-genbank.html).  
  
Key to this is having identifiers for specimens. Identifiers for
metadata about those specimens is not good enough. By analogy with
bibliographic citation, one of the important decisions
[CrossRef](http://www.crossref.org) made was that DOIs for articles
identify the article, not the metadata about the article, or any of the
different formats (HTML, PDF, print) and article may occur in. This
means we can build databases about things and relationships (this
article cites that one, these articles were authored by this person,
etc.).  
  
As it stands, if we don\'t have identifiers for specimens then we can\'t
link data together. For example, the frog specimen \"USNM 195785\" is
depicted in the image below (from
[EOL](http://eol.org/data_objects/22427069)):  
  
![89351
orig](http://lh3.ggpht.com/-vgLcbbAg9rQ/UPUpLLRdDyI/AAAAAAAACYg/rMHbQI0GII0/89351_orig.jpg?imgmax=800 "89351_orig.jpg"){style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;"
border="0" width="450" height="350"}  
  
It is also [listed in various papers in
BioStor](http://biostor.org/specimen/USNM%20195785). In the absence of a
globally unique identifier for this **specimen** how do I make these
links? \"USNM 195785\" won\'t do because there are at least four
specimens in the USNM with the catalogue number \"195785\". The GBIF
occurrence id for this specimen
(<http://data.gbif.org/occurrences/244405570>) would be an obvious
candidate, were it not for the fact that GBIF has no concept of stable
identifiers and its [occurrence ids regularly
change](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/07/dear-gbif-please-stop-changing.html).  
  
I confess I\'m flabbergasted that iDigBio has avoid tackling the issue
of specimen identifiers. If any museum wants to discover how its
collection is being used to support science it will want to find the
citations of its specimens in scientific papers and databases. This
requires identifiers for specimens.


The Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio) project aims to advance digitising US biodiversity collections. They recently published a GUID Guide for Data Providers. In the PDF document I read this:  My heart sank.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

iDigBio: You are putting identifiers on the wrong thing