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Resource Identification for a
Biological Collection Information Service in Europe Results of the Concerted Action Project |
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Resource Identification for a
Biological Collection Information Service in Europe Results of the Concerted Action Project |
[Contents] [BioCISE Home | The Survey | Collection catalogue | Software | Standards and Models]
Pedro Fernandes
P. 49 in: Berendsohn, W. G. (ed.), Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe (BioCISE). - Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Dept. of Biodiversity Informatics.
The community of Portuguese collection curators (data providers in terms of the project) is very scattered. The initial survey identified about 40 collections; 30 more were added at a later time. Representatives from 50 collections attended a workshop held in Lisbon in February 1999. Due to BioCISE's broad definition of "bioogical collection", the participants were of differing orientations and most had never actually met. In the meeting very soon a sense of being on common ground for the discussion of shared problems was revealed. There was also agreement on the need of hosting a provisional forum for discussion and information interchange. This was implemented as a web site presenting the minutes of the workshop and additional contact data. These pages are now rather frequently visited (about 2,500 hits per month), especially after a button producing a query to the Berlin server selecting Portuguese entries was added. This denotes the increased value of the localization component offered by the BioCISE catalogue. The system is now available to the international scientific, educational and even commercial sectors from which the hits are quite noticeable. The scientific and technical value of the system as a locator of resources is a reality and the data consumer community is rapidly responding.
The experience shows that an information system that locates and adds value to biological collection data has the inherent benefit of reuniting an otherwise scattered community of data providers around the common problem of registering their data in an interoperable way. Taken to a European scale, capitalizing on this and similar experiences in other member countries, the system is bound to greatly enhance the value of collection data across the continent and worldwide. The implementation phase (see Chapter XI) can be viewed as an extension of this experiment, providing a much wider coverage.
Another obvious conclusion is that the existence of a national "node" greatly helps to integrate and reunite local efforts and represents a step towards the creation of a coherent user community. Users respect stability and reliability and these are better kept by an appropriate reference site.
The experience of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência as the national node for EMBnet may serve as a model of how the existence of a national focal point can be essential to assemble resources and communities, harmonize methods and further interoperability. In the area of molecular bioinformatics, EMBnet regularly provides updated data, well installed and tested programs, help desk support, and training activities to about 35,000 users in 35 countries. The biological information service could pave the way for a European Network of Biological Collection Data Resources, if the effort is properly coordinated, financed and integrated in wider community efforts.
© BioCISE Secretariat. Email: biocise@, FAX: +49 (30) 841729-55
Address: Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Freie
Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 6-8, D-14195 Berlin, Germany