ABI Development: An Online Registry for Biorepositories and Other Scientific Collections

Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The Smithsonian Institution is awarded a grant to develop a conceptual plan for a single, sustainable directory of scientific collections that will interface with two public portals: one for biorepositories and another for collections in all scientific disciplines including earth and space sciences, anthropology, archaeology, biomedicine, and applied fields such as agriculture and technology. The proposed Global Registry of Scientific Collections will be conceived as an interdisciplinary extension of the existing Global Registry of Biorepositories currently including over 7000 records. Two requirements gathering meetings will be held with community members to build on earlier attempts to develop standardized descriptors of collections and to gather input into improved versions of the database and two portals. The planning process will develop specifications and standards for the registry content including: unique identifiers for institutions or collections; address and contact information; text descriptions and some categorical data about each institution or collection; and search, filter and download functions. Common web services functions will be specified to standardizing the way that information about biorepositories and their collections is accessed online. Plans for implementation and for long term hosting and maintenance of the system will be developed in close communication with other cyberinfrastructure projects involved in collections data management. Access to digital data and publications resulting from publicly funded research is an increasingly important goal because re-use is more efficient than re-discovery. The same is true for the research objects stored in scientific collections. Digitization of individual specimens and samples is extremely valuable but it is also slow and expensive. Online descriptions and standardized data about collections can increase their visibility, use and impact prior to complete digitization. Comprehensive registries of collections also provide standardized vocabularies that can be used to link different collections and types of collections, thereby increasing their accessibility and research impact. Online registries of scientific collections will raise the general awareness of collections, their diversity and depth, and their varied research uses. Researchers will be able to broaden the types of collections they study in pursuit of interdisciplinary research challenges. Teachers and students will gain an appreciation of the diversity of collections from microbes to moon rocks, and an understanding of how object-based research (as opposed to observational research) is being conducted on specimens and collections that have been amassed for centuries.