Nacha van Steen KMK+G

we have many objects
linking to other databases, fe a japanese university website
objects that have been part of other researches -- now available in 3D
+ added Google maps

most metadata is on-line, but not their value nor where exactly they are.
Descriptions, references (linked to library) + pdf with more images

she nows her favorite examples by heart

some locations difficult to find 

forcing using fixed categories/structured thesauri, rather than free data. Link to Wikipedia
using sometimes existing thesauri, sometimes tailormade.

recent: iconography thesaurus.
'candidate terms'
this is important, especially for objects in their collection -- standard thesauri do not help.

Q: japanese project, how did this happen?
A: project wanted to index ALL japanese prints from before 1880 (?). They came to scan.

How to deal with political / geographical issues? Tibet for example ... depends on what Belgium can recognize for example, so Tibetan art falls under China right now.
'found in Tibet'; Tibetan culture. 

Q: What about Eastern Island, and what about exporting data?
A: Yes (sort of) and no simple way to allow users to export data. E-museum+ plus does not provide that option. 

Q: Can users add annotation. 
A: We would love that; no staff nor developers for that.

Q: software not Open Source?
A: no. 

Plantentuin Meise: Henry Engledow + Pieter Huybrechts

Complexity in data

JSTOR global plants!? + GBIF + Europeana

Benchmarking species. Dublicate material is spread over the world. 
There are many types of types.

Wrong or right referencing

Taxonomists, ecologists, climatologist, ...
Specimens used in a variety of ways.

11 years to get to the first 1 million
The Dutch sped up the last half million with Flemish funding.

To see holotypes, you needed to actually travel to the specimen.
Digital tech helps.

African herbarium, part of mass digitization
'relatively well organised'

Family > species > country > collectors > collector number

A gazetteer (?)

Not complete!

Data from before Congo was actually ehm.
Colonies increased collecting of species.
Data not just interesting for biologists.

BG-BASE
specic for botanical gardens.

50.000 fields

'we know what is in the collection because it is in the database'
detecting errors

fluid vs static data
'it is getting better with DNA'
species concepts change; species are like clouds (?)

DOE

virtual herbarium -- collaborate with other herbaria, also in the Congo's
machines can read this data too.

Publicly accessible data is minimal.
Scientists are protective.

Putting books on-line
trying to make things interconnected.

crowdsourcing data on specimens

The problem with georeferencing.
Unclear notations! Rubbish!
Versioning mistakes. Even scientists make mistakes!

Correcting what is 'wrong'.

Fields for similar things that are the same or not

Countries that do not exist any more. Data needs to be clean, so versioning would get us in problems.

There is a separate names database with variations in names.

And then there is the problem of opiniated scientists.

'fish people have been very good in digitizing'.

Ursula Leguin: She Unnames Them
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qE-mJs0wRwWkwK7b7bCqqGBC1Iqrl9GSrdhXpdQogaM/edit#!

Human decision = human error.
static does not apply.

databases in the 80s and now.

'we hope that technology will help us out in the future'

some changes happen much faster than they can track

country delineations (dodgy) vs biological delineations (better)
but laws are organised according to nations

'I created three regions' to deal with BE situation.

Private vs public herbarium
There is always something that does not fit.

Q: keeping tracks of compromises?
A: yes, annotations; [xxxx] is an interpretation but not everyone reads.

There are more interconnections between databases.
'we need universal identifiers' -- using Harvard RDF, interdependent

'walking the tree'


[An and Marie present their projects]

Back to the discussion

Bart: what would be interesting to look into
AM: wants to work with minority languages. To see what that does. FR, NL, EN, ES are languages from/by colonial powers. 

Bart: is it an encouragement to embrace uncertainties?
Marie: yes, to be more transparent about their doubt. Have research logs, notes, debates visible. Some categories/items will need 

Nacha: you would like the debate, but what to do with the critique. Quality of comments public debate and scientists.

Bart: tension difference between registrars / scientists and general public?

Henry: Taxonomists are individualists and they don't have time either. Ecologists are group people, that like to share processes. Scientist believes he/she is expert, others not.

Bart: is the crowdsourcing about transparency?

Henry: Something is better than nothing. Amateurs are finding species.

Bart: How do you work with WikiData + digital files plantentuin?
AM: surprised that the material is not on Wikimedia Commons.

A: licensing conflict

...

'copying all relevant data'. Adding scan from original arrangements as metadata.

... > probable > uncertain > ...

differences between different languages?
There should be exact translations!

Plantentuin and how they deal with uncertainty.

what is on the label 


the uncertainty of georeferencing
accuracy and probability

Plantentuin not translated.

Kobe: what fiction can taxonomy bring? Prehistorical data ... bacteria painting. A mixture of things. This type of work needs interdisciplinarity and connection, not separation.

A: wikidata is interesting for that reason.

and now we have it in our database.


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From the New Fireceremony:
“I will tell you my story....the story of a new paradigm concerning the organization of the collection. It is the story of the moulding technology filling the responsibility towards the story of the objects, that are found, given, plundered and collected...