Darrell J. Siebert

800,000 Records in 2 Years: A backcapture project at the NHM

The MOA Programme: installation of EMu in the NHM

• Completed in just over 3 years

– As of 1st April 2008 EMu is a core NHM business application

• Single, fully integrated Collection Management system

– Reconciliation of curatorial policies, procedures, and activities; embedded in EMu

• Under budget

– ~£1.525M

EMu Application Developments

• NHM a contributor to a global community of EMu users

– Mineralogy

• New Analysis module

– Entomology

• New Collection Index module, significant redesign of Taxonomy module

– Palaeontology

• New Stratigraphy and Conservation (2) modules

– Zoology

• New Requisition module

– Botany

• Significant extension of Sites module

Data from 5 Science Departments

• Main data sources

– Mineralogy 14

– Entomology 13

– Palaeontology 2

– Zoology 5

– Botany > 60

EMu database records created

• 13.7 million records in total

– Catalogue records (3.1 million)

• Mineralogy 400,000

• Entomology 1,000,000

• Palaeontology 200,000

• Zoology 1,000,000

• Botany 500,000

– Taxonomy records (1.6 million)

– Other types of record

Coverage in EMu by NHM Department

• Botany

• Entomology

• Mineralogy

• Palaeontology

• Zoology

• ~ 10%

• 100% (taxon index)

– < 1% (specimen records)

• 100% (skeleton records)

• ~ 2%

• ~ 30%

Collections Committee data entry project(safe cracking)

• Discrete projects that can be completed start-to-finish

• High through-put

• High value record sets

– Collections Management

– Research

– Public interest

Acquisition

Taxonomy

Catalogue

Collection Event

Sites

Bibliography

Mollusca registers data entry screen

Collections Committee data entry project results

Department Record Set Volumes Records

EntomologyAcquisition Registers

21 > 157,450

EntomologyArachnida Registers

7 > 59,350

MineralogyPetrology rock

catalogue16 > 65,550

PalaeontologyMicroPalaeo

Registers14 > 85,200

ZoologyInvertebrates 1

Registers21 > 217,600

Zoology Parasitic Worms 8 >25,200

Post data capture activity

• Record sets turned over to departments for:

– Enhancement

• Addition of higher taxonomic categories

• Addition of higher level locality data

– Data cleanup

• British Isles is not a country (it isn’t even an island group)

• Leg. – nobody uses latin anymore

Importing data

• .csv files

– (converted to UTF 8)

• Known irns in .ref fields to reduce duplication of records (also quicker)

– Parties

– Taxonomy

– Sites

– Collection Events

– Acquistion

Questions?

Collections Database Project

• interest dating from well before 2000

• trial installation of EMu by Fish Group (Zoology)

– 130,000 specimen records

– Loans system

– etc.

• EU tendering process, EMu selected

• budget of £1.6 million agreed

MOA Programme

Programme Sponsor (Graham Higley, Head LIS)

NHM Project Manager (Marion Raiser)

Ke Software Project Manager (Andrew Brown)

Mineralogy

D. Smith

Project Team:

subject experts

testers

Entomology

B. Pitkin

C. Lyal

A. Hine

Project Team:

subject experts

testers

Palaeontology

S. Long

Project Team:

subject experts testers

Zoology

D. Siebert

Project Team:

subject experts testers

Botany

S. Grant

Project Team:

subject experts

testers

Programme Team (Project Manager + Team Leaders)

Mineralogy

• unified 14 separate data sources

• 400,000 specimen records

• 130,000 sites

• development of new Analysis module

Entomology

• unified 13 different data sources

• 1 million catalogue records

• 710,000 collection index records

• 1.2 million taxonomic names

• significant extensions to Taxonomy module

• developed new Collection Index module

Palaeontology

• unified 2 data sources

• 200,000 specimen records

• new Stratigraphy module

• new conservation modules

•Interventive Processes

•Condition Report

Zoology

• unified 5 data sources

• over 1 million catalogue records

• 200,000 taxonomic names

• management of specimen, parts and preparations

• new Requisition module

Botany

• unified > 60 data sources

• 500,000 catalogue records

• 230,000 taxonomic names

• management of everything from herbarium sheets to

field note books

• significant extensions to Sites for locality data

General

• new museum-wide processes

•common loans system

•object entry & acquisition

• integrated multimedia

Business Outcomes – Future benefits• Web access across whole Museum, and to

the public

• Data provider

– Portals, GBIF, OAI (e.g. Google)

• Data sharing

– With science partners

• On-going evolution of EMu system driven by our large, specialised user-base

• Standards for interaction with other systems

NHM EMu Command Centre

Coverage in EMu by Department

• Botany ~ 10%

• Entomology 100% (taxon index)

< 1:

• Mineralogy

• Palaeontology

• Zoology

MOA Programme (Museum Online Access)

• Integrate 5 Science departments in a single Collections Management System

• Implement consistent collection standards, policies and procedures

• Installation complete in 3 years

– Original proposal was 5 years

• On budget