How GUIDs will be used

[Sally Hinchcliffe]

Arthur wrote

> To some extent I think Sally is right, what she suggests wouldn't improve things with respect to duplicate specimens however- specimens of the same collection sent to more than one (and some times many) different institutions.
>
regarding duplicates, to my mind, there's a very strong connection
between the duplicate of 'Chapman 541' held at Kew and the one held
at Canberra (assuming there is such a thing). But they aren't the
same thing (and shouldn't have the same id) - a photograph of Kew's
duplicate would look nothing like a photograph of Canberra's
duplicate for example. I'm not sure whether GUIDs are going to help
us solve the problem of duplicates although I agree that it's
desirable. What _could_ have the same GUID is the collecting event
(Chapman taking a specimen) that gave rise to the two specimens ...
but who or what would issue or control _those_ GUIDs?

Sally
*** Sally Hinchcliffe
*** Computer section, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
*** tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5708
*** S.Hinchcliffe at rbgkew.org.uk