Skip to Content

Preparing specimens for donation to museums

Last modified by Anniina Kuusijärvi on 2024/02/12 12:24

Page in Finnish: Näytteiden lahjoittaminen museoon

This page describes on general level possibilities for labeling and preparing specimens for donation/deposition to a natural history museum, in the case where the donator does not have access to Kotka.

If you are planning to donate specimens, always contact the museum(s) beforehand to ask for further instructions! Different museums have different processes and customs.

The instructions can be used as a preliminary and general guideline when keeping a private collection (points 1 and 2) and when donating the specimens to a museum. Specimens can be delivered to museums also without labels and identifiers, as long as sufficient collecting information comes along with and can be connected to the specimens, but handling specimens at museums can then be slower.

This page gives general information on how people outside Finnish natural history museums (non staff members) can

  1. Give unique identifiers for specimens
  2. Make labels for specimens
  3. Send the specimens an their information to Luomus or other Finnish natural history museum.

Creating identifiers

Each specimen needs to have its own unique identifier. The purpose or the identifier is to individualise the specimen and connect the specimen to the data about it in the database. The identifier is printed on the label as text. In addition to this, the identifier can be printed on the label as a barcode or a QR code if it fits the label and is seen necessary. The purpose of the code is to make specimen handling faster.

Unique identifiers are crucial when the data is stored in a database used by several organisations.

Finnish natural history museums use Kotka, which uses so called HTTP-URI -identifiers. An example of this kind of identifier is http://tun.fi/JAB.123 . Here JAB is the so called namespace and 123 is a running number. It is recommended to use similar identifiers also for specimens outside Kotka CMS, as they are globally unique. HTTP-URIs function as a web address, if the data is stored in Kotka (or other system).

The uniqueness is guaranteed by giving each collector or digitiser their own unique namespace ID, that separates specimens they have numbered from other specimens. The collector/digitiser only needs to make sure they don't give the same number for more than one specimen.

Example: Maija Meikäläinen uses the Namespace ID JAB and Teppo Teikäläinen uses JAC. Both give a specimen the number 123. For Maija's specimen, the identifier is http://tun.fi/JAB.123 and for Teppo's http://tun.fi/JAC.123.

If you donate specimens to museums regularly or in larger amounts, you can ask for your own Namespace ID from the admins kotka(at)luomus.fi.

More about Specimen Identifiers

List of reserved Identifiers

Labeling specimens

Specimens can be labelled using either LabelDesigner or older label tools.

LabelDesigner

Label Designer can be accessed without signing in to Kotka here https://kotka.luomus.fi/tools/generic-label

When using LabelDesigner for labeling, the data can be imported to the tool in a Kotka specific Excel format or other table format. Ask from the receiving museum for more instructions on the desired label design.

If the data has been previously entered to FinBIF observation system Vihko and specimens are later donated to a museum, LabelDesigner can also be used in Vihko to create labels: https://laji.fi/vihko/tools/label (requires login to Vihko).

More instructions for the use of the tool: Label Designer

Other label tools

If instructed so, also other tools can be used for printing labels for specimens to be donated to a museum.

Kotka import can be accessed without signing in to Kotka here: https://kotka.luomus.fi/tools/import

In the preview phase of the import, labels can be printed without saving the data to Kotka.

Digitisation labels

If you need labels that include only the QR code and identifier as text, you can use LabelDesigner for that, too.

Delivering the specimens and data to the museum

If the specimens are delivered to a museum using Kotka for collection management, the following process can be followed. After delivering the specimens and their data to a museum, possible corrections or changes to the data need to be done to Kotka, and not to the copy of the Excel file.

Collector:

  1. Contacts the receiving museum for further instructions.

Staff at museum:

  1. Gives the collector further instructions and an empty Kotka excel template with all the necessary columns.

Collector:

  1. Delivers the specimens and the data on the Kotka excel sheet to the museum by email (or if includes sensitive data, by other means).
  2. Delivers also possible images of the specimens or habitat to the museum.

Staff at museum:

  1. Checks the specimens and their data.
  2. If necessary, adds information on the Excel (e.g collectionID and Specimen location)
  3. (discards part of specimens and marks them as discarded on the Excel sheet)
  4. Imports the data to Kotka and saves it
  5. Photographs the specimen
  6. Adds images to Kotka (images by collector and museum)
  7. Incorporates specimens to the collection
  8. Records the donation as an incoming gift transaction to Kotka, if needed.