Imago: An Open-Source Repository for Born-Digital Scientific Collections

Poster for Imago specimen digital library poster at the Educause Annual Conference 2017 to be held in Philadelphia, PA on Nov 1, 2017.

Transcript

1. Chad Hutchens, Head of Digital Collections, University of Wyoming Libraries
   Jennifer Laherty, Head of Sciences, Indiana University Libraries
   Robert H. McDonald (@mcdonald), Associate Dean for Research & Technology Strategies/Deputy Director D2I Center, Indiana University
   Imago: An Open-Source Repository for Born-Digital Scientific Collections
   BACKGROUND
   DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGIES
   Imago is a digital library/preservation solution to capture
   born-digital scientific specimen collections for your
   institutional repository. This open-source application
   powered by a Samvera/Fedora repository solution is the
   result of a collaboration between research libraries and
   biological collection curators across multiple
   institutions. This poster shows possibilities for bio-
   collections for IU and UW.
   IMAGO AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY
   IU Biological Specimen Collections
   • Herbarium – 130K pressed plant specimens
   • Paleontology – Currently 2,500+ fossils
   potential for 1.3M specimen lots/5M total
   fossils
   • Zooarchaeology – 10K 3D vertebrate skeletons
   • Can this architecture also be used for
   generalized datasets from other disciplines?
   IMAGO POSSIBILITIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
   Dissemination &
   preservation of digitized
   fossil collections. IMLS
   grant to digitize 5,000
   specimens from
   Wyoming’s rare fossil
   mammal collection.
   UW Biodiversity Collections
   SUMMARY
   REFERENCES
   • Neither content management
   systems, nor aggregation
   services provide preservation
   means for digital specimens.
   • Master images are not
   preserved in context with
   metadata
   • No agreed upon standards for
   file preservation, file format,
   technical metadata, etc.
   UW COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT
   • IIF 3D Viewer integration for Imago specimens.
   • Advanced access controls for lab management and
   distribution.
   • Darwin Core Metadata.
   • Permanent table PIDs for long-term use.
   • Re-use of content via API access to collections with
   Symbiota and Specify.
   Highlights
   UW Geological Museum
   • Laherty, J. and Motz, G. (2016) Boundless Use of Indiana University's Biological
   Research Collections Possible in Partnership with IU Libraries. Paper presented
   at: IFLA WLIC. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1958
   • McDonald, R.H. and Hutchens, C. (2017). A New Ecosystem for Biodiversity Data:
   An Open Source Repository for Born Digital Scientific Collections. ACRL Annual
   Conference, Baltimore, MD. http://hdl.handle.net/2022/21781.
   • Stewart, C.A., Cockerill, T.M., Foster, I., Hancock, D., Merchant, N., Skidmore, E.,
   Stanzione, D., Taylor, J., Tuecke, S., Turner, G., Vaughn, M., and Gaffney, N.I.,
   Jetstream: a self-provisioned, scalable science and engineering cloud
   environment. 2015, In Proceedings of the 2015 XSEDE Conference: Scientific
   Advancements Enabled by Enhanced Cyberinfrastructure. St. Louis,
   Missouri. ACM: 2792774. p. 1-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2792745.2792774
   • Imago is based on the Fedora/Samvera digital library and repository architecture
   (http://fedorarepository.org | https://samvera.org).
   • UW Museum of Vertebrates ~ 9.000
   specimens
   • UW Geological Museum ~40,000 fossils
   • Rocky Mountain Herbarium ~850,000
   specimens
   UW Collection Management Systems
   •Arctos (http://arctosdb.org)
   •Specify (http://specifyx.specifysoftware.org)
   •Symbiota (http://symbiota.org)
   • Documenting mass extinction and recovery of
   mammals during the K-PG extinction.
   • Using digital microscopy, focal stacking, and
   image tiling to generate 2D and 3D imagery.
   IU USE OF IMAGO
   Imago
   IU Herbarium Use Case
   • The current key use case for Indiana University
   is the IU Herbarium.
   • The herbarium uses Imago to make their
   specimens available for use with Symbiota and
   Specify and eventually as a part of the
   Consortium of Midwest Herbaria portal.
   • http://imago.indiana.edu
   •CMH Portal
   http://midwestherbaria.org/portal/index.php
   Digital Biodiversity Preservation Issues
   • Samvera/Fedora architecture achieves a
   generalized sustainable digital library
   repository solution for biological specimens.
   • This architecture can be maintained in
   scientific cloud architectures like Jetstream.
   #EDU17
   #IMAGO
   

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