Publications

@article{10.3897/rio.6.e50354,
title = {SYNTHESYS+ Virtual Access - Report on the Ideas Call (October to November 2019)},
author = {Helen Hardy and Sandra Knapp and Louise E Allan and Frederik Berger and Katherine Dixey and Bernadette Döme and Pierre-Yves Gagnier and Jiri Frank and Elspeth Margaret Haston and Joachim Holstein and Steffen Kiel and Maria Marschler and Patricia Mergen and Sarah Phillips and Rivka Rabinovich and Begoña Sanchez Chillón and Martin V Sorensen and Marco Thines and Maarten Trekels and Robert Vogt and Scott Wilson and Karin Wiltschke-Schrotta},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.6.e50354},
doi = {10.3897/rio.6.e50354},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
journal = {Research Ideas and Outcomes},
volume = {6},
pages = {e50354},
publisher = {Pensoft Publishers},
abstract = {The SYNTHESYS consortium has been operational since 2004, and has facilitated physical access by individual researchers to European natural history collections through its Transnational Access programme (TA). For the first time, SYNTHESYS+ will be offering virtual access to collections through digitisation, with two calls for the programme, the first in 2020 and the second in 2021. The Virtual Access (VA) programme is not a direct digital parallel of Transnational Access - proposals for collections digitisation will be prioritised and carried out based on community demand, and data must be made openly available immediately. A key feature of Virtual Access is that, unlike TA, it does not select the researchers to whom access is provided. Because Virtual Access in this way is new to the community and to the collections-holding institutions, the SYNTHESYS+ consortium invited ideas through an Ideas Call, that opened on 7th October 2019 and closed on 22nd November 2019, in order to assess interest and to trial procedures. This report is intended to provide feedback to those who participated in the Ideas Call and to help all applicants to the first SYNTHESYS+Virtual Access Call that will be launched on 20th of February 2020.},
keywords = {access, collaboration, digital data, digitisation, digitization, natural history collections, virtual data},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{10.3897/biss.3.37188,
title = {SwissCollNet – A National Initiative for Natural History Collections in Switzerland},
author = {Holger Frick and Pia A Stieger and Christoph Scheidegger},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.3.37188},
doi = {10.3897/biss.3.37188},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
journal = {Biodiversity Information Science and Standards},
volume = {3},
pages = {e37188},
publisher = {Pensoft Publishers},
abstract = {More than 60 million specimens are housed in geological and biological collections in numerous museums and botanical gardens located all over Switzerland. They are of national and international origin. Taken together they form an entity with a high scientific value and international recognition for their contribution to scientific research. Due to the federalistic organisation of Switzerland, natural history collections are located and curated in numerous institutions. So far, no common strategy for digitisation, documentation and long-term data archiving has been developed.
This shortcoming has been widely identified by concerned parties. Under the lead of the Swiss Academy of Sciences, several organisations have assembled information about Swiss natural history collections. They identified measures to be taken to promote the scientific and educational potential of natural history collections in Switzerland (Beer et al. 2019). 
With a national initiative, the Swiss Natural History Collections Network (SwissCollNet) aims to unite Swiss natural history collections under a common vision and with a common strategy. The goal is to promote the collections themselves and to harness the scientific and educational potential of these collections for research and training. SwissCollNet consists of representatives of research, teaching, museums and botanical gardens, the data centers for information on the national fauna and flora, the Swiss Systematics Society and the Swiss node of GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
The initiative aims to foster research on natural history collections. It will provide a single decentralised data infrastructure framework for Swiss research related to natural history. It will help to harmonise nationwide collection data management, digitisation and long-term data archiving. It will facilitate identification of specimens and revision of taxonomic groups. New research techniques, fast-evolving computer technologies and internet connectivity, create new opportunities for deciphering and using the wealth of information housed in Swiss and international collections. 
The development of an agreed strategy and research priorities on a national scale will allow fluent, fluid and permanent collaboration across all Swiss natural history collections by promoting interoperability and unified access to collections as well as creating opportunities for scientific collaboration and innovation. This national approach will create an internationally compatible research data infrastructure, while respecting and integrating regional and decentralized conditions and requirements. Thus, it will maximize the impact for science, policy and society.},
keywords = {data management, digitisation, educational potential, scientific potential, standards, strategy},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}