Revision of Improving collections management and enhancing accessibility from Mon, 2014-03-10 16:04

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.