Here's what the Collection Object form looks like as of April 2016. Keep in mind, Specify is a 'living' database, and there are always upgrades and tweaks being made. All efforts will be made to keep this page up to date.
One of the first things to realize about this form, it's bit of a Frankensteins monster of a database form- parts taken from other tables, strings tied together from a variety of origins and so on. This section is meant to clarify some of this, and give a user enough information that they can understand what into to put where, and why. Because of this narrow focus, we're able to skip some of the things that the Quick Guide covers well enough.
Review the primer on relational databases to see how all these sub-forms relate to other tables and 'tie in' to the Collection Object form.
For information on how NPL assigns assigning new numbers, cordons off numbers for incoming collections and handles catalog number conflicts head over to the Catalog Number detailed info page.
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You will often see other numbers written on either the specimen or label, or both. These numbers need to be entered here, separated by a comma. If you can identify the catalog, put that in there also. This is especially important when a Plummer number has been crossed out and reassigned a BEG number (an act that was very popular in the mid 1900's), also as smaller catalogs get brought under the NPL catalog system, keeping the original catalog acronym and number provides an important record should we ever need to backtrack. |
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Accession records in Specify help us track important legal and provenance information- the Accession Number is the index number for that record. These numbers are formatted to show the year the material was accessioned, and the order in which it came.The Accession Number field in the Collection Object form lets NPL 'tie' the Accession record to the Collection Object, so it's important to have the correct number in this field. If you have an Accession Number, you can type the year, then tab and select the correct sequential number. The Collection field is auto completed based on the information tied to the Accession Number, and will not display until the record is saved, closed and reopened.
Commonly used Accession Numbers: |
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When a specimen is preserved in a way that shows evidence of a relationship with another organism, that relationship is recorded in the Containers field.
The Container field is a look-up field. You can either add a new container, or search for an existing one. Create New: Launch subform by clicking on the
The Parent/Child relationship is not currently being used. Add CO record to an existing container:
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This is one of the more confusing aspects of the CO form. See the 'about' page for clarification.
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Most of the forms have a remarks field, and we did this so that we could at least catagorize the bits of information that have no other set 'home' database field. Notes about the specimen, its history ('given as a gift to Dr Sprinkle at his retirement party') and in some cases, notes about resolved data entry issues below here. Comments about the rock formation it came from, the conditions of the field trip while it was collected and so on...these all belong in remarks field in other tables.
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Remarks about the specimen, it's history, or cataloging issues go here.