Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe
Results of the Concerted Action Project

[Contents] [BioCISE Home |  The Survey | Collection catalogue | Software | Standards and Models]

The BioCISE project

Walter G. Berendsohn

Pp. 1-4  in: Berendsohn, W. G. (ed.), Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe (BioCISE). - Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Dept. of Biodiversity Informatics.

Objective

The near-exponential accumulation of information in biological collections and databases, development of international interests in biological questions, and the expansion of computer literacy among scientific professionals in recent years have combined to generate a demand for easy and rapid computer-based access to biological information. BioCISE and preceding projects and initiatives brought together researchers from different disciplines and professional backgrounds who share a common vision: An electronic access system facilitating queries across the hundreds of millions of specimens and monitoring or mapping records held by institutions, projects and individual researchers in the EU and partner countries.
This publication reports on the concluded concerted action project, which set out to identify and analyse biological collection information and its environs with the aim to prepare a sound collaborative technical and structural base for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe and a strategy for its implementation.

Justification

Tasks like the acquisition, cultivation, preservation, and storage of objects in biological collections are an integral part of biological research in many sub-disciplines. Biological collections include microbial and tissue culture collections, plant genetic resources, natural history museums, botanical and zoological gardens, natural substance collections, as well as observation data (surveys, mapping projects) and multimedia data such as animal sounds and pictures of organisms.

Biological Collections:
The term “Biological collection” is here understood to include the following main categories:
·         Living collections (e.g. botanical and zoological gardens, microbial strain collections)
·         Natural history collections (mainly in museums and universities)
·         Data collections used in faunistic and floristic mapping projects and surveys.

In most fields, Europe houses the most extensive living and natural history collections worldwide. Taken together, this represents an immense knowledge base on global biodiversity. Field and research notes and specimen labels contain valuable and detailed data; and the object itself can be a physical resource for research and industry. In contrast to mere observations, the object also presents a falsifiable source of information, i.e. it can be re-observed to verify a scientific hypothesis based on it.
Currently, this knowledge base is largely under-utilised, because its highly distributed, heterogeneous, and complex scientific nature obstructs efficient retrieval. Efforts to network the resources exist, but these are restricted to the local or national level or to often narrowly defined biological sub-disciplines. Transfer of technology and co-ordination on a European level is lacking.

Biological Collections, the Archives of Biodiversity

Natural history collections are estimated to hold more than 2.5 billion specimens world-wide (Duckworth & al. 1993), each of which represents direct physical evidence of past occurrences of organisms, providing information ranging from geographical and historical presence to ecological and morphological details.
If properly vouchered, observation records, such as created by floristic or faunistic mapping projects, environmental impact studies, ecological research, etc. may represent a valuable source of such data as well (although they are mostly restricted to presence/absence data). No estimate of the amount of observation records was found in published literature.

Project methods and summary of results

A previous EU project (CDEFD, see Berendsohn 1997a) has produced a detailed information model of biological collection information. The CDEFD model was further extended and finally published under BioCISE (Berendsohn et al. 1999a).
The model depicts in detail the information structure of biological collection units, ranging from natural history specimens to strains in culture collections to occurrence records of organisms in biological surveys. On the one hand, it documents the complexity of collection information (see Chapter III). On the other hand, the model indicates that biological collection data covering a wide range of traditionally separated biological sub disciplines could and should be united under a common access system, because their information structures are so similar. The approach of the BioCISE system was based on this conclusion.

European collection holders – a fragmented community

Fragmentation occurs mainly along five lines:
(i) Taxonomic boundaries (botanical gardens, zoological gardens, microbial culture collections, floristic mapping projects, faunistic monitoring, bird sightings)
(ii) Species survey vs. specimen collection
(iii) Collections as archives or as a means to an end. There are numerous surveys and collections effected e.g. in environmental impact analysis projects. The objects and the data generated by such projects may be highly valuable, but they are usually not accessible using the normal pathways of information retrieval, because either their peers do not recognize their value for the community at large, or they regard them as confidential research information
(iv) Along national lines, mainly due to differences in the organisation of research collections, e.g. largely centralised national natural history collections vs. a number of distributed smaller institutions
(v) According to size; large and small institutions may have different interests.

In a large-scale survey of collections in the countries covered by the EU's 5th Framework Programme, questionnaires were sent by mail to 2550 laboratories (institutes and other collection holders). In addition, 413 professional societies throughout Europe were asked to support the survey. 483 laboratories (or 19 % of those contacted) replied to the survey. Of the respondents, 292 (61%) do maintain one or more biological collection databases. The total number of collection units (including survey records) catalogued in these 448 databases exceeds 42 million. For further details on the survey's result see Chapter VII.

The BioCISE World Wide Web Collection Catalogue provides access to the survey's results; for 60 % of the laboratories, which responded to the survey it is the first representation of their collections on the World Wide Web. In addition to the detailed survey results of respondents, all corroborated institutional addresses are accessible. The Collection Catalogue also provides access to a set of linked networks to demonstrate the idea of interoperability. See Chapter X for details. The WWW site and the database will be maintained by the BGBM at least until December 2000.

Several subgroups within the project investigated user needs, i.e. the question if and how collection information is or may be put to use (see Chapters IV and V). In this context, several meetings were organized to incorporate potential users in the design process of a Biological Collection Information Service. The meetings also served to publicise the Survey, and to foment collaboration between collections on a national level (see Chapter VIII, Portugal, Israel, Italy). Participation of BioCISE members in several international congresses and scientific meetings served the same purpose.

The results were used in several funding applications, where new partners contributed to the discussion. As a synthesis of the resource identification process, a two-tiered strategy for the creation of a European Collection Information Service emerged. The strongly varying level of technical possibilities of collection holders, the relatively low availability of computerized records (as a percentage of the entire holdings), as well as the differing willingness to share information over computerized network makes it necessary to design a central system to provide collection-level data and thus the over-all cover of collections. Users can use this system to gain access to the information (most of them) really demand: unit-level data. Initiatives to provide common access to unit-level information must be fomented (see Chapter IX), and be it restricted to specific thematic areas or to the national level. However, participation in ongoing international standardisation efforts should be secured. The system should eventually become a "portal" to collection information (see Chapter XI), by linking unit-level information, where available, to well-structured descriptions of entire collections.

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