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Below is document describing a draft data exchange standard for interoperability among mammal collections in natural history museums. This particular document is a revision (by John Wieczorek and Barbara Stein on 4 Sep 2002) of the current draft of the Darwin Core, version 2 (DwC2), presented here for discussion by the participants in the MaNIS project. It is recommended that readers become familiar with the concepts and history of metadata standards for natural history collections, and with the original Darwin Core in particular, which came out of the development of The Species Analyst (TSA). The Taxonomic Database Working Group (TDWG) is also a good source of information on standards, information models, and data dictionaries for biological collections.
Concept Documentation Searchable Returnable Required
DateLastModified ISO 8601 date and time in UTC(GMT) when the record was last modified. Example: "November 5, 1994, 8:15:30 am, US Eastern Standard Time" would be "1994-11-05T13:15:30Z" (see http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime). check check check
BasisOfRecord A description indicating whether the record represents an observation, tissue sample, living organism, voucher specimen, germplasm/seed, genetic information, etc. check check unchecked
InstitutionCode A code that identifies the institution to which the cataloged item belongs. No global registry exists for institutional codes; use the code that is "standard" in your discipline. This attribute must contain no spaces. check check check
CollectionCode A unique alphanumeric value that identifies the collection within the institution in which the item is cataloged. This attribute must contain no spaces. check check check
CatalogNumberText An alphanumeric value which identifies an individual cataloged item within the collection. It is recommended that this value provides a key by which the individual cataloged item can be identified. check check check
CatalogNumberNumeric The CatalogNumber as a numeric value, if applicable. Allows searching on numeric ranges of CatalogNumbers. check check unchecked
Collector The name(s) of the collector(s) of the original data for the cataloged item. check check unchecked
CollectorNumber An identifying string applied to the cataloged item at the time of collection. Serves as a link between field notes and the cataloged items. check check unchecked
FieldNumber An identifying string applied to a set of material that resulted from a single collecting event. check check unchecked
YearCollected The four digit year in the Common Era calendar in which the cataloged item was collected. check check unchecked
MonthCollected The two digit month of year in the Common Era calendar during which the cataloged item was collected from the field. check check unchecked
DayCollected The two digit day of the month in the Common Era calendar during which the cataloged item was collected from the field. check check unchecked
VerbatimCollectingDate The verbatim original representation of the date information for the collecting event. check check unchecked
JulianDay The ordinal day of the year (i.e., the number of days since December 31 of the previous year; January 1 is Julian Day 1) on which the cataloged item was collected. May be derived from the YearCollected, MonthCollected, and DayCollected by the provider. check check unchecked
TimeOfDay The time of day the cataloged item was collected, expressed as decimal hours from midnight, local time (e.g., 12.0 = noon, 13.5 = 1:30pm). check check unchecked
ContinentOcean The full, unabbreviated name of the continent or ocean from which the cataloged item was collected. check check unchecked
IslandGroup The full, unabbreviated name of the island group from which the cataloged item was collected. check check unchecked
Island The full, unabbreviated name of the island from which the cataloged item was collected. check check unchecked
Country The full, unabbreviated name of the country or major political unit from which the cataloged item was collected. check check unchecked
StateProvince The full, unabbreviated name of the state, province, or region (i.e., the next smaller political region than Country) from which the cataloged item was collected. check check unchecked
County The full, unabbreviated name of the county, shire, or municipality (i.e., the next smaller political region than StateProvince) from which the cataloged item was collected. check check unchecked
Locality The description of the locality from which the cataloged item was collected, sans geographic information provided in other geographic fields. check check unchecked
DecimalLatitude The latitude of the location from which the cataloged item was collected, expressed in decimal degrees. check check unchecked
DecimalLongitude The longitude of the location from which the cataloged item was collected, expressed in decimal degrees. check check unchecked
HorizontalDatum The horizontal geodetic datum to which the DecimalLatitude and DecimalLongitude refer. check check unchecked
OriginalCoordinateSystem The name of the system in which the original geographic coordinates were recorded (e.g., "decimal degrees", "degrees minutes seconds", "UTM", etc.). check check unchecked
VerbatimLatitude A text representation of the Latitude data in its original format in the source database. check check unchecked
VerbatimLongitude A text representation of the Longitude data in its original format in the source database. check check unchecked
MaximumErrorDistanceInMeters The upper limit of the distance (in meters) from the given latitude and longitude describing a circle within which the whole of the described locality must lie. Use NULL where the uncertainty is unknown, cannot be estimated, or is not applicable. check check unchecked
BoundingBox This access point provides a mechanism for performing searches using a bounding box. A Bounding Box element is not typically present in the database, but rather is derived from the DecimalLatitude and DecimalLongitude columns by the data provider. check unchecked unchecked
MinimumElevationInMeters The minimum distance in meters above (positive) or below sea level of the collecting locality. check check unchecked
MaximumElevationInMeters The maximum distance in meters above (positive) or below sea level of the collecting locality. check check unchecked
VerbatimElevation A text representation of the Elevation in its original format in the source database. check check unchecked
MinimumDepthInMeters The minimum distance in meters below the surface of the water at which the collection was made; all material collected was at least this deep. Positive below the surface, negative above (e.g., collecting above sea level in tidal areas). check check unchecked
MaximumDepthInMeters The maximum distance in meters below the surface of the water at which the collection was made; all material collected was at most this deep. Positive below the surface, negative above (e.g., collecting above sea level in tidal areas). check check unchecked
VerbatimDepth A text representation of the Depth in its original format in the source database. check check unchecked
ScientificName The full name of lowest level taxon to which the cataloged item can be identified (e.g., genus name, specific epithet, subspecific epithet, etc.) check check check
Kingdom The phylogenetic kingdom to which the cataloged item belongs. check check unchecked
Phylum The phylogenetic phylum (or division) to which the cataloged item belongs. check check unchecked
Class The phylogenetic class to which the cataloged item belongs. check check unchecked
Order The phylogenetic order to which the cataloged item belongs. check check unchecked
Family The phylogenetic family to which the cataloged item belongs. check check unchecked
Genus The phylogenetic genus to which the cataloged item belongs. check check unchecked
Species The phylogenetic specific epithet of the cataloged item. check check unchecked
Subspecies The phylogenetic subspecific epithet of the cataloged item. check check unchecked
ScientificNameAuthor The author of the ScientificName. Can be more than one author in a concatenated string. Should be formatted according to the conventions of the applicable taxonomic discipline. check check unchecked
IdentifiedBy The name(s) of the person(s) who applied the currently accepted ScientificName to the cataloged item. check check unchecked
YearIdentified The four digit year in the Common Era calendar in which the cataloged item was identified as having the ScientificName. check check unchecked
MonthIdentified The two digit month in the Common Era calendar during which the cataloged item was identified. check check unchecked
DayIdentified The two digit day of the month in the Common Era calendar during which the cataloged item was identified. check check unchecked
MostRecentTypeStatus Indicates the most recent kind of nomenclatural type that the cataloged item represents. check check unchecked
MostRecentBasionym The most recently published scientific name for which this cataloged item is a type. May be the same as the ScientificName. check check unchecked
Sex The sex of a cataloged item (e.g., male, female, hermaphrodite, gynandromorph, not recorded, indeterminate, transitional - between sexes, for sequential hermaphrodites). check check unchecked
Preparations A concatenated list of preparations and preservation methods (skin, skull, skeleton, whole animal (ETOH), slide, etc.) for the cataloged item. check check unchecked
Tissues A concatenated list of tissues and preservation methods (whole (frozen), liver (EDTA), etc.) for the cataloged item. check check unchecked
IndividualCount The number of individuals present in the lot or container referred to by the catalog number. Not an estimate of abundance or density at the collecting locality. check check unchecked
OtherCatalogNumbers A list of previous or alternative fully qualified catalog numbers of the cataloged item whether in the current collection or in any other. check check unchecked
Notes Free text notes attached to the cataloged item record. check check unchecked

John Wieczorek, 4 Sep 2002
Rev. 18 Oct 2002, JRW
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, Copyright © 2001, The Regents of the University of California.