Aula, Museos y Colecciones

El Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona (MCNB) ha elaborado una Guía de fondos y colecciones basándose en los principios documentales de la descripción a nivel de colecciones o Collection Level Description (CLD). El objetivo del proyecto es poner al alcance de ciudadanos e investigadores una herramienta para facilitar el acceso y la consulta de sus fondos y a su vez disponer de una herramienta interna de soporte a la gestión de colecciones.

El esquema de metadatos utilizado ha sido el Natural Collections Description (NCD), diseñado por el Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG). El proyecto se ha implementado con el NCD Toolkit, una aplicación web de software libre. Esta aplicación ha sido adaptada para dar respuesta a los requerimientos del museo sin interferir en la estructura del esquema NCD, se han optimizado algunas funcionalidades técnicas y se ha diseñado una interfaz de consulta para la web pública.

El conjunto de fichas descriptivas obtenido ha supuesto la confirmación de que se ha gestado una herramienta útil para valorizar, difundir y mejorar el acceso a las colecciones, además de habilitar una aproximación transversal a los diferentes tipos de fondos (museo, archivo, biblioteca, etc.) y de ofrecer un apoyo documental para la diagnosis, planificación y gestión de colecciones.

El plan de difusión de las fichas de metadatos creadas en este proyecto prevé su agregación en repositorios internacionales. Plataformas como el GBIF Metadata Catalogue o el recientemente creado Global Registry of Biorepositories (GRBio) son algunos de los proyectos de referencia.

The Natural History Museum of Barcelona has created a descriptive inventory for its collections and heritage assets using a Collection Level Description (CLD) approach. The purpose of this project is to provide citizens and researchers with a discovery tool for the museum’s collections and to create an application for use in collection management.

The project was motivated by the need for new strategies to improve biodiversity data mobilization and discovery, and the desire to have a common management and access tool for the collections held by the different areas of the museum (specimen collections, library, archive, exhibitions, etc.). This tool will satisfy the needs of all the various user communities, including the museum staff.

The Collection Level Description is a records management approach that complements item-based digitalization by focusing on the description of significant sets. This ‘collection level shortcut’ enables museum to provide a quickly accessible discovery tool for the whole holdings on several levels. The metadata schema used was the Natural Collections Description (NCD) developed by the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG). The project is powered by the NCD Toolkit, a free software web application that was adapted to fit the museum’s requirements without interfering in the NCD schema structure. Certain technical features have been improved and a new interface for public front-end users has been designed.

Firstly, we created records for major taxonomic groups and then extracted information about collections from the historical archives, published sources and the item-level databases. Subsequently, the staff in charge of each area began a process of revision and validation of the content of records and created further descriptions according to their own particular needs.

A manual for cataloguing collections was written with application notes and examples that refine the scope of the original definitions in order to fit the application context of the museum and to ensure standardized data entry. Currently, 228 collection datasheets have been completed (Table I), 88 of which are publically available on the web. Also available here are the content of each department’s collections, the library, the archive, the sound library and the scientific publications department. The website of the project is available at www.bioexplora.cat/ncd.

The creation of these collection datasheets is an effective way of promoting, disseminating and improving access to collections and also enables cross-referencing to the various heritage assets held by the museum. In addition, it is a tool that will greatly help collection management and policy planning.

The dissemination of these metadata records anticipates that they will eventually form part of international information repositories. Platforms such as the GBIF Metadata Catalogue or the recently launched Global Registry of Biorepositories (GRBio) are just two of the reference projects that are currently working with this type of metadata approach.