Improving collections management and enhancing accessibility

Improving collections management and enhancing accessibility.

Main Idea: To provide a coherent, integrated management approach that will enable NH collections to
meet the expanding needs of Users, with particular focus on the development of and access to virtual
and new physical collections.

The tools, standards and training provided by SYNTHESYS1&2 NAs have proved successful in improving collections management of traditional European NH collections (e.g. alcohol-preserved specimens, desiccated plants and insects, bones and minerals). There is a demand from both NH institutions and the User community to move the focus from improving collections management of traditional collections to developing that for their growing virtual and new physical collections. NA2 will meet the demand by developing collection management policies and strategic priorities for open and flexible access to virtual and new physical collections. To ensure the wider uptake of these policies outside the Consortium, NA2 will collaborate with other European and international initiatives such as the Collections Policy Board (CPB), LifeWatch, BioNET, IBOL, and International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) on shared policy creation, promotion and implementation. The resultant recommendations and supporting documentation will be made openly available via EU-CoM (an online collection management handbook created by SYNTHESYS2). NH institutions are generating increasing amounts of virtual collections data as NH institutions enter the realm of the systematics of morphologically indistinct micro-organisms. As for some organisms (e.g. some protists) a video of the specimen is considered the type, as the physical entity cannot be stored using conventional curatorial methods. Furthermore, virtual collections can add value to original specimens when a digital surrogate is enriched with analytical data. For example the mining and resources industry is interested in gaining access to the chemical analysis data associated with mineralogical collections. The policies created will ensure that these collections are as accessible as
the traditional physical collections DNA and tissue banks are areas of rapid development and contribute to the CBD by storing and providing access to material that is a key source for biological research. NH repositories are working in a disparate way making access difficult. NA2 will work with non-NH biological resource centres to create a network of DNA and tissue banks. This network will improve access to the materials stored within these banks by ensuring that collections are stored to agreed standards, comply with quality control measures and provide easy access with a single searchable database.
SYNTHESYS2 developed the Collections Self-Assessment Tool (CSAT) which allows institutions to assess whether the management of their collections meets the SYNTHESYS benchmarks. NA2 and NA3 will promote the wider use of the CSAT and continue to provide feedback reports with recommendations for improvement. Institutions will be encouraged to re-use the CSAT every 3-5 years to test whether their collections management is improving. The CSAT will be updated to include questions on management of new physical and virtual collections to assess uptake of the SYNTHESYS policies.