SpecifyaaS: Managing Ephemeral Repositories in Collections-Based Research

What this was about

Kevin Holston explained how the Swedish Museum of Natural History runs its own local Specify 7 instances ('Specify as a Service') as ephemeral or semi-persistent repositories for researchers, rather than pushing them straight into the institutional collection database. He distinguished research-group collections of loaned, persistent vouchers from institutional programmes such as biobanks and the environmental specimen bank, whose semi-persistent vouchers are used up over time. As an example, he showed how a researcher's 16 years of Madagascar aquatic insect inventory became a Specify research database with 808 collecting events, organised event images and field sheets. He argued that these instances bring standards in early and act as laboratories of innovation for Specify.

Why it matters. Much specimen data is created in project spreadsheets before it ever reaches a collection database. Giving researchers compatible, low-commitment instances is a practical way to get standards and identifiers in early and to track derivatives and loaned material as their own objects.

In the room

• NRM runs local Specify installations on its own infrastructure and spins up temporary instances, for example for visiting researchers, that are compatible with the institutional database.
• Category 1 (research group/project): material is mostly on loan, vouchers are persistent, and the project repository has little motivation to record where things physically are.
• Category 2 (research institution/programme, e.g. biobank, eDNA and environmental specimen bank): vouchers are semi-persistent and subject to depletion, and the repository must reflect the physical collection.
• Historically, derivatives have been documented as voucher attributes rather than as independent objects, which limits tracking of objects, attributes and locations over time.
• A researcher's Madagascar aquatic insect inventory became a Specify research database with 808 collecting events over 16 years of trips. An unexpected benefit was standardisation and the organisation of event images and field data sheets.
• Holston repurposed the Specify storage tree to record provenance, i.e. loans, in his own research database, showing Specify's flexibility.
• Instances can be 'furnished' (pre-loaded with collection data, like a furnished house or hotel) to give visitors a head start in digitising.

Notable moments