Accessions and batches: reducing data input time

[Corrado Topi]

Dear all,

We often receive plants in batches: maybe 200 plants of 150 different species at the same time. For us, an accession is the whole batch. For ghini (if I understand well) on the other hand, you have one accession for each species, even if the species is already in the database.

That has of course a longer data input time, and we are completely strapped for cash and for time .... we are all volunteer and put our own money into the garden, so we would do anything to reduce the data management time :) .... Is there a way to group all of ghini accessions into a group or a batch, so that you define the batch, you attach the plants and the species to the batch, and then ghini automatically creates the accessions?

Best,

[Mario Frasca]

Hi Corrado.

please open an issue on this, or comment on one of the already existing issues, possibly 320, or 127.

but also please do review your terminology, "accession" is an established concept in botany and in general in collection management, it's not a bauble/ghini invention.  call your batch a batch, an acquisition, an order, a delivery, but please don't call it an accession, because it's not, and we will misunderstand each other if we introduce new meanings for established terms.

check this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_number_(library_science) wikipedia page, or even better the (Irish) reference used in the botany section of the page: http://www.botanicgardens.ie/educ/accnosho.pdf

the Dutch 'Postcodeloterij' has financed a copyrighted but freely downloadable document about collection management, and the title of the very first chapter sounds: "de accessie, basis van het collectiebeheer" (beheer=management).  you will be able to download it from http://www.botanischetuinen.nl.  the license does not allow redistribution.

an other source which I can refer to but which I'm not allowed to redistribute is "Best Practices in Living Collection Management", a 54 sheets presentation given by Alanna Slack, Living Collection Management, Missouri Botanical Gardens at the 2016 Panama regional congress.  Alanna first defines accessioning as the "process of assigning a number to a plant that allows it to be tracked", then she describes the whole logic no more no less as it is also implemented in bauble/ghini.  this is a screenshot of sheet 19.

the only difference I can see is the separator: dash instead of decimal point.

an other interesting source, dealing with the term "accession"/"accessioning" is this one https://www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr/herbarium/accession-policy.html at the Australian National Herbarium, where you see that the "accession" concept is a very generic, albeit abstract, concept, and you should appreciate the difference between "acquisition" and "accession".

best,

Mario

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[Mario Frasca]

may I suggest …

On 08/01/2018 04:17 AM, Corrado Topi wrote:

> a way to group all of ghini accessions into a group or a batch, so
> that you define the batch, you attach the plants and the species to
> the batch, and then ghini automatically creates the accessions?

provide your preferred format, I will tell you if it contains enough
information for importing it into the database.

I suppose you will provide global information, and plant information:

1) the (global) name of the batch or acquisition (and any other global
information that characterizes the acquisition, be it a commercial
acquisition or a expedition into the wild — the following fields would
be per-plant)

2) species binomial or variety or cultivar or anyhow initial best
identification

3) accessioned quantity for this plant-species

4) intended location in the garden

5) whether you have planted it already, or if you are keeping it in a
nursery.

6) in case you initially keep the plant in a nursery: the location
within the nursery.

7) in case you collected the plants in the wild, the collection location.

anyway: you anyway need to provide information, and ghini user interface
isn't that user-unfriendly (is it?), you can copy/paste whole forms
(Ctrl-Shift-C/Ctrl-Shift-V), and you get so many extras if you use ghini
(in particular: taxonomic review), that I sincerely doubt it would be
much faster, first inserting the data in a spreadsheet, then importing
it in ghini and having to deal with the inevitable typing mistakes you
will make in writing the taxon name, even if you don't count the
programming time at my end.

MF