Content curatorial status of an institution

These proposed statuses are for marking where an institution is in terms of having their biodiversity data openly accessible. They are essentially answers to questions that I ask when I try to apply a proper GRSciColl tag for an institution (= github issue). I ended up finding these statuses provide some reasoning and logic to existing tags. So I put it here for your consideration.

Please note that these are not meant to be new tags for issues. Unless people find these useful to co-exists with current tags and can workout proper way to separate types of tags, or it's probably better to focus on current tagging practice.

1. status unknown: It's not clear whether the institution manages its own collections.
2. non-curatorial: The institution doesn't manage its own collection, regardless the storage location of specimens. Staff engaging in sampling or curatorial activities make deposit in other institutions by which the ownership of the specimens is claimed.
3. curatorial: The institution manages its own collection, regardless the storage location of specimens. Staff engaging in sampling or curatorial activities make deposit in the assigned storage.
   1. inventories none: The institution has specimens stored without an inventory.
   2. inventories incomplete: The institution is in the process of constructing its inventories.
   3. has inventories: The institution has complete lists of curated specimens.
      1. inventories on paper: The institution has its inventories recorded in physical forms, such as cards, papers, books, etc.
      2. inventories electronic: The institution uses spreadsheets or databases for its inventories.
      3. inventories incomplete: Combining with either inventories on paper or inventories electronic, means the institution is in the middle of establishing paper booking or converting paper to electronic, respectively.
         1. inventories with media: The institution produces digital copies of specimens.
         2. inventories public: The institution offers online access to its inventories, with or without associated digital copies.

For evaluating the status, because GRSciColl institution entities may be affiliated among themselves, in a seemingly affiliation group, each entity is evaluated individually. For example, in Sarawak, Malaysia, the Department of Forestry is an IH entry, the Sarawak Herbarium, and is affiliated with the Sarawak Forestry Department. On the website of the later, it states having four collections on this page. Following those four pages, the herbarium one mentions the use of BRAHMS for their electronic catalogue and shows a few specimen images, while the rest show images of indoor storage, but no mentions of data management. Having the available information, the Sarawak Herbarium (Department of Forestry) and Sarawak Forestry Department are evaluated separately✝︎, with the former given the status inventories electronic (implied curatorial and has inventories), plus inventories with media; the later only has inventories.

Current GRSciColl tags can indicate the statuses above, or be implied by a status. We can discuss how we'd like to look at it, but the figure below is my perspective.

• If an institution is tagged pending collection verification, that means from the information I've found, I am not sure whether the institution conduct collection curation activities, even though it's a GRSciColl institution.
• If an institution is tagged collection missing (from GBIF), that means the information shows that the institution curates collections that are not available via GBIF.org, regardless the status of its inventories.
• If an institution is tagged some specimens in GBIF, that means the information shows that the institution has electronic inventories. The same if tagged some digitized specimen-metadata missing in GBIF. (Do we want to consolidate these two? Or do I understand some specimens in GBIF differently?)
• Having only part of the collections in GBIF could imply that the institution is in the middle of converting to electronic catalogue, therefore inventories incomplete.

These are just examples of how I would interpret between the statuses and current tags. I hope as a discussion starter, this will facilitate for us to reach a more stable tag set.

✝︎ This page says the herbarium locates 10km away at the Forest Research Centre, which is another reason not to merge the Department of Forestry into Sarawak Forestry Department on GRSciColl, even their names suggest the same institution. If "merging" of institutional entries happens, the status would be re-evaluated.