The Assessment of the Needs of Free-Standing Museums for the Computerization of Collections Management and Related Research

W博士Wayt托马斯是纽约植物园的馆长 花园，他组织了一个雄心勃勃的两年规划 活动涉及一个由八个最大的自由- 站立（即，非大学，非联邦）自然史 美国的博物馆和植物园 美国博物馆 自然历史博物馆（纽约）、纽约植物园、 费城自然科学院卡内基博物馆 匹兹堡自然历史博物馆，密苏里州植物园 (St.路易斯），洛杉矶县自然历史博物馆， 伯尼采·毕晓普自然历史博物馆（檀香山），以及 加州科学院（旧金山弗朗西斯科）。 领域 自然历史博物馆（芝加哥）和史密森尼博物馆 自然历史系是自然科学联盟的当然成员。 的 财团建议聘请Mitre公司作为 分析数据管理需求的独立顾问 在八个成员博物馆中， 关于硬件架构和系统方法 软件 这些需要包括标本数据库， 机构，以及与生物 研究社区。 需求评估的结果和 今后将采用系统设计建议 大规模计算硬件的建议。 每个博物馆协会都发起了创建 计算机数据库的标本，和研究 社区将越来越期望访问这些数据， 最简单的方法。 本次集体规划活动将 强调共同需要和解决办法， 机构，从而结束了博物馆的趋势， 在数据管理实践中存在分歧， 国家生物多样性之间的互操作性水平 参考收藏。 联合会的成立和 该项目的成果将为整个 生物研究社区通过协调管理 不同科学学科使用的数据。

Dr. W. Wayt Thomas is a Curator at the New York Botanical Garden, and he has organized an ambitious two-year planning activity involving a Consortium of eight of the largest free- standing (i.e., non-University, non-Federal) natural history museums and botanical gardens in the U.S.: the American Museum of Natural History (New York), the New York Botanical Garden, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh), the Missouri Botanical Gardens (St. Louis), the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, the Bernice P. Bishop Museum of Natural History (Honolulu), and the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco). The Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago) and the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History are ex officio members of the Consortium. The Consortium proposes to engage the Mitre Corporation as an independent consultant for analysis of the data management needs in each of the eight member museums, and for recommendations concerning hardware architecture and approaches to system software. These needs would include databases of specimens, and institutions, and general interoperability with the biological research community. The results of the needs assessment and the recommendations for system design would then be used in future proposals for large-scale computing hardware. Each of the Consortium museums has initiated creation of computer databases for their specimen holdings, and the research community will increasingly expect access the these data in easiest possible way. This collective planning activity will highlight common needs and solutions that could be shared among institutions, thereby ending the tendency for the museums to diverge in their data management practices, and increasing the level of interoperability among the nation's biodiversity reference collections. The creation of the Consortium and the results of this project will provide benefits to the entire biological research community by coordinating the management of data used by diverse scientific disciplines.