The ‘Big Five’ Meeting

1. The ‘Big Five’ Meeting Anna L Weitzman, PhDInformatics Manager

2. An aside about “Big” Largest Institutional Natural History Collections(ranked by # of specimens, in millions, approximate) recent biologyall National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC 83 126 The Natural History Museum, London 60 83 Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris 59 65 Harvard University Museums, Massachusetts 26 ?? American Museum of Natural History, New York 21 ?? Humboldt Museum, Berlin 21 ?? Bishop Museum, Honolulu 20.5 ?? Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago 19.6 ?? Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 18.5 ?? Zoological Institute, St Petersburg 15 ?? ______________________________________________________________________ Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 12? Missouri Botanical Garden 8? New York Botanical Garden 6?

3. NMNH Collections: use and growth • NMNH collections are actively studied. During FY 2001: • 3,580,639 specimens were out on loan • 15,235 visitor days were spent in the collections • 590,400 visits were made to web-available collections databases (16% of NMNH electronic collections data were available on the web in FY 2001) • NMNH collections grow by 200,000- 500,000 specimens annually

4. Possible Objectives • Discussing and agreeing to shared interests / needs and how to encourage KE to meet them. • Leveraging our collection improvement funds by collaborating on KE EMu changes • Getting to know each other better and discussing the successes and problems that we have (best practice for retrospective data capture, ensuring data quality). • Interest in attempting to standardize our fields, screens, data to the extent possible--by discipline, or more generally? • Forward looking recommendations, e.g., networked or shared authority lists/files • georeferencing, gazetteers, recommendations for standards

5. Possible Objectives • how to share data amongst ourselves and the world, including discussions of modeling the data and tools in such a way that we can better support biodiversity studies • The user experience for global data searching, e.g., use cases, identify constituents • related standards and activities of related groups (GBIF, BioCASE, TDWG..., standards such as Darwin2, ABCD, SDD, the emerging taxonomic names standard, TaXMLit) • Develop a specification for standard data import schema gateway for bulk loading of data into KE EMu • Rights, permissions, credit, security

6. AMNH Barbara Brownbbrown@amnh.org Linda Ford lford@amnh.org Richard Monkmonk@amnh.org Tom Trombone trombone@amnh.org FMNH: Bill Barnettwbarnett@fieldmuseum.org Robert Lückingrlucking@fieldmuseum.org Joanna McCaffreyjmccaffrey@fieldmuseum.org KE: Andrew Brownandrew.brown@kesoftware.com NHM: Jayne Dunn jdunn@nhm.ac.uk Graham Higley (regrets)g.higley@nhm.ac.uk NMNH: Dennis Haschhaschd@si.edu DucPhong Nguyen (Ducky)nguyend@si.edu Beth Strohmayerstrohmab@si.edu Anna Weitzmanweitzman@si.edu NYBG: Emily Ashleyeashley@nybg.org Tony Kirchgessnertkirchgessner@nybg.org Heather Rolenhrolen@nybg.org Barbara Thiersbthiers@nybg.org Melissa Tuligmtulig@nybg.org YPM: Larry Galllawrence.gall@yale.edu Mary Ann Turnermaryann.turner@yale.edu Attendees

7. Outcomes • A statement of intent drafted by Jayne Dunn has been circulated to the group for comment. • A MoU drafted by Bill Barnett, Barbara Thiers, and Anna Weitzman has been circulated to institutional leads for comment and then for signature at the appropriate level in each institution. • An area on the NMNH portal site has been set up for the group to share screen shots, proposals, information, reports, etc.  • The group decided that there were a fairly small set of priorities that all agreed upon and we agreed on different ways to approach them.  

8. Outcomes The group agreed to set up 3 formal working groups to work on specific topics. YPM and AMNH are invited (and encouraged) to nominate a member to each of these groups if they choose. We may also invite interested parties from other EMu customers.  In each case, the group should nominate someone to coordinate and be a spokesperson. • Taxonomy module Group • Anna Weitzman, NMNH • Robert Lücking, FMNH • Melissa Tulig, NYBG • Darrell Siebert, NHM • Transaction module Group • Beth Strohmayer, NMNH • Joanna McCaffrey, FMNH • Barbara Thiers, NYBG • Paul Davis, NHM • Web Group (including DiGIR, etc) • Dennis Hasch, NMNH • Joanna McCaffrey, FMNH • Tony Kirchgessner, NYBG • Jayne Dunn, NHM

9. Outcomes We also agreed that the following topics are priorities: • Combining Collection Events data in either the Catalogue (AMNH) or the Sites (NMNH) module • Redesign of Lat/Long and Mapping tabs • Use of External Authority files with EMu. Trial with Alexandria Digital Library's Gazetteer • Import--NMNH plans and has funding for two simple prototypes • Reports--Information will be posted by all on the NMNH portal. • Best practice for data cleanup before and after migration. • Conservation Module. An informal group will discuss this • Discipline specific groups. While this was discussed, no specific conclusions were reached or groups set up. The larger group will start to discuss and set up groups as needed, especially in light of the plans for migration in various museums.  Entomology and Mineralogy top the NHM list of priorities and NMNH, at least, is interested in working with them on these.