What is the best software for cataloging your insects?

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maybe someone who uses excel can email me a rough copy of what they use.......jamiegarrisonjr@yahoo.com......then i can work on it to make it work for me.

… James E. Garrison, 10 October, 2010 - 11:56am

Here is the Excel template pr

Here is the Excel template prepared by David Shorthouse for the Nearctic Spider Database:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8581283/CANSD_Excel_Template.xls

It was originally intended for use in importing local data into the online database, but might be useful as a reference as it includes some explanatory information about some of the various fields that are possible. Note there are three sheets: a welcome page, an explanatory page and the data sheet.

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 10 October, 2010 - 12:30pm

I'm using my own customized v

I'm using my own customized version of Piotr Naskrecki's Filemaker database Mantis. His is specifically designed for winged insects (grasshoppers, etc.) and is rather complex; it includes tables for sound recordings, DNA analyses, host/predator relationships, literature citations, etc. He does make a stand-alone version available, but for the sake of customization it is preferable to own your own copy of Filemaker (about $200, I think).

My version, branched off from Piotr's a while ago, has been customized for my own arachnological purposes. I'll post some screen shots later this week.

His version is here: http://insects.oeb.harvard.edu/mantis/

If you've used Filemaker, you'll probably like it -- unless you hate Filemaker (that's how those things go); it is all "pre-PHP/MySQL", so putting the DB online requires additional software for live publishing or export routines for static publishing. Graphically Filemaker is all object-based and relatively easy to modify. Even if you don't use Mantis, it might give you some ideas about how to construct your own database. One aspect that people don't always think about is that you will want to be able to handle the constantly changing taxonomy -- maintain the junior/senior relationships of synomyms, the hierarchical structure, etc. Then there are very useful practical features such as label creation, lists, automatic generation of descriptions, import/export, image tracking, and of course specimen cataloging.

"Biological collections software" is a hot topic right now, I suspect. Look at things this way: every niche taxonomist has similar (though not the same) cataloging problems to solve; naturally when these niches are located within a larger institution there needs to be an integrated approach that encompasses the specific niche needs as well as address the institutional aspects of cataloging and archiving. Things can quickly become rather complex.

Here is a page that lists some current projects/software in use (don't know how recent):
http://www.bgbm.org/tdwg/acc/Software.htm

And one that I looked at a while ago (and would consider today I weren't happy with what I have): Specify http://specifysoftware.org/

-K

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 9 October, 2010 - 8:13am

Institutions using Specify

Here is a list of institutions using Specify: http://specifysoftware.org/content/user-list

It's MySQL-based; they offer an EZDB version designed for the single collection (i.e., private collection) that comes with MySQL already built in.

As with Mantis, you need to invest a bit of time, until you become comfortable with the concept of collecting events, locations, taxons, etc. -- each of which has its own record in its own table; however, once you get used to this you'll like being able to instantly pull up "all species from this location", "all collecting events from this location", "all locations for this species", etc. lists.

… Kevin Pfeiffer, 9 October, 2010 - 8:20am

Excel.

I just use Excel spreadsheets. The beauty of that is that I understand Excel files can be converted into files for specimen databases in other kinds of software. Someone else here will correct me if I'm wrong :-)

… Eric R. Eaton, 7 October, 2010 - 8:59pm

Use of a simple and well known program like Excel

has advantages

It is easy to export data in various formats including delimited text, and a competent computer scientist can easily manipulate it, place it online, import it into other programs, etc.

Another good thing about Excel is that it can handle umlauts and other symbols in author names, etc., whereas many "better" programs can't handle these or have problems with them. Often it is easiest to simply paste symbols into Excel from Word, and it can be useful to enter them as Unicode, especially if you plan to place the text online.

… John S. Ascher, 9 October, 2010 - 2:33pm

If you're careful

Excel is more flexible than database programs about whether data is text or numbers or dates, etc. When database programs import from Excel, they tend to make assumptions in the conversion process based on the first values they find.

This can be a problem if you have some values in a field that can't be numbers (letters, hyphens, other non-numeric characters), but some values that are all digits: if the first record in the spreadsheet looks like a number, the conversion will try to make it a numeric field and give you a "data-type mismatch" error for all the records with non-numeric characters in them. It also causes problems if you have numeric codes with leading zeroes ("00047" is not the same as "47", for instance- I first ran into this problem with zip codes in eastern states that start with zero) or periods ("10.5" is not "ten and a half") or even the letter "e" in between digits (12E3 gets interpreted as "12 times 10 to the 3rd"- 12,000).

The generic solution is to put an apostrophe/single-quote (') as the first character in the field before the real data (a hypothetical code 101008007- the date followed by a 3-digit number- would be entered '101008007). This character is ignored by Excel and by database programs' import conversions, but it forces everything to deal with the data as text (if your data starts with an actual apostrophe, just put another apostrophe in front of the apostrophe so it's not the first character).

The same holds true for dates that aren't all in the same format: perhaps you have some where you only know the month and year, so you leave out the day part of the date. or you have a range of dates. Database programs will assume a date data-type if the first value in the field is in a standard date format, then give an error for every value that isn't in that format. The apostrophe works there, too. There are also ways to set up your fields so you don't have to mix standard and non-standard date formats in your data, but that's a bit more complicated, so I won't go into it here.

… Chuck Entz, 8 October, 2010 - 3:29pm

Rather than use the leading apostrophe/single-quote

I've had luck simply using "Format cells" to a "general" or "text" format as appropriate. Use of "Format cells" options often clears up problems that arise in data display etc.

… John S. Ascher, 9 October, 2010 - 2:36pm

Fine for Excel display, but...

some database applications don't look at your formatting when they append records from Excel. Eric was saying that he thought Excel could be easily imported into more sophisticated database programs. My response was to address that point.

It's not that big of an issue, because someone who knows about this can open up the Excel file and add apostrophes where needed when they do the import. If you can get into the habit of adding the apostrophes in the first place, though, it makes it a little easier for the person on the other end.

… Chuck Entz, 9 October, 2010 - 4:14pm

thanks for clarifying this point

it is certainly important to consider export from a program in addition to display within the program

… John S. Ascher, 10 October, 2010 - 4:59pm