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@rbgkew.org.uk