Roderic Page wrote:
+1 on keeping things simple (i.e., Darwin Core is a success, why muck with it?)
Well, I guess the accuracy of the statement "Darwin Core is a success, why muck with it?" depends on your point of view. If the only thing you do is collect specimens, then you would probably agree with that statement. If you document organisms by photographing them, collecting DNA from them, or a combination of the above, then you would probably NOT agree with it.
GBIF makes the following statement on it's website: "Since its inception, GBIF has focused its data digitisation and mobilisation activities on natural history collections data. However, targets such as the discovery of 5 billion and mobilisation of up to 2 billion primary biodiversity data records require that GBIF data discovery and mobilisation activities place equal emphasis on other data types." (http://www.gbif.org/informatics/primary-data/types-of-primary-biodiversity-d...). I would be interested in hearing from some of the GBIF representatives how they would envision accomplishing the goal of integrating other data types with specimen data if Darwin Core remains frozen in a form that really only works well for collections metadata?
Steve