SMNS – State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart

The SMNS used the inventory and information system IMDAS (Integrated Museum Documentation and Administration System) to manage its collections, as it was designated by the State Baden-Württemberg in 1999/2000 for all State collections. The information system SYSTAX was used as a data portal for GBIF, when the SMNS was one of the former six GBIF nodes. As BiNHum (Biodiversity Network of the Humboldt-Ring, which is coordinated by SMNS) and GFBio started, the Diversity Workbench (DWB) was introduced at SMNS and has replaced IMDAS in 2015. The DWB is the core system for the GFBio Data Center SMNS.

Scientific data curation services (incl. taxonomic services)

The taxonomic expertise and interest is that of the SMNS (see https://www.naturkundemuseum-bw.de/en/research). Research at the SMNS is based on our scientific collections of fossils, plants, insects, molluscs and vertebrates. Taxonomic research, through which organisms are identified, described, named and classified, is a central element of our daily work. Our research is outlined by the following frame topics:

Biosystematics and taxonomy: Discovery, registration, description, and classification of organisms.

Research on evolution and phylogenetics: Origin, modification, and phylogeny of organisms.

(Palaeo-)biogeography and stratigraphy: Analysis of the patterns of distribution of organisms in space and time.

Ecology and ecosystem research: Analysis and comprehension of habitats and biocoenoses.

Biodiversity-Informatics: digital availability, integration and computational analysis of basic scientific data about the diversity of life.

Applied research: accumulation of basic knowledge for problem solving, support for the utilisation of scientific data, and implementation of results

The SMNS has a special interest in (meta-)data related to its taxonomic and other focussed research areas like the botanical field mapping of Baden-Württemberg and Germany but also in molecular data as those collected within the German Barcode of Life project.

The SMNS has a strong interest in collection and observational data as well as in genomic research data.

Data archiving for research projects focusing on botanical, zoological and paleontological data. The data archiving includes management processes with Diversity Workbench (DWB) databases. The data publication is done via the DWB network at the SMNS (SMNS - extended profile).

IT services

Data submission and accession

• ImportWizard for DiversityCollection
• DWB data replication (exports) to ABCDEFG-structured xml files for portals like GFBio, GeoCase and BiNHum
• Recorder software 6 D for central data entry of floristic data, subsequent data processing for botanical field mapping and provision of the field mapping portal.

Data integration and management

• Services done with DWB databases and repositories (12 databases)
• Several DWB SQL database installations at the SNSB IT Center, München; remote data management by researchers possible; various types of user interfaces and rich clients
• Installation for open data and general access of taxon names and terms (=TNT) through either DWB networks "cloud" or web services
• Repositories for multimedia data and original raw data files (contextual data management in DWB)

Data backup and archiving

• Backup and archiving facilities for data and multimedia files

Data publication

• Services for user-guided export of data, provided by DWB export wizards
• Data provider for GeoCase, BioCase, GeoRef, BiNHum, GBIF
• Services provided by BioCASe Provider Software (BPS) installations at SMNS; e. g., export in various content standards
• Stable Specimen Identifier (GUIDs) Portal

User services

• GFBio Workshops
• DWB Workshops in cooperation with SNSB
• Recorder 6D support

(a) Export files from external installations of DiversityCollection, DiversityTaxonNames (b) any spreadsheets (CSV, excel-files), structured according existing DWB import schemes (see SMNS GitHub, SNSB GitHub and ZFMK GitHub) (c) spreadsheets and databases appropriate to create new DWB import schemes); Image formats have to be agreed for submission Example templates for data submission can be found in the GFBio collection of recommended data submission templates

via GBIF publication

via ZB MED/DataCite publication

Metadata

Data