ABSTRACT This project will meet fundamental challenge for the biocollections community: enabling the capture, management, integration and dissemination of specimen data for research, education, resource management and public policy. The project will deploy, develop and support a community-based applications suite for biocollections data that will provide the foundation for a stable, secure and scalable informatics infrastructure. Version 1.0 of this application, called OZ, has been developed funding and will be released and distributed at no charge to the biocollections community. OZ has been designed as a community database schema and application suite for Microsoft's Win95 and NT operating systems for the capture, maintenance, integration and dissemination of computerized biological collections data. OZ is a multi-taxonomic database management system supporting data from plant, fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal, insect, general invertebrate, and paleontological collections. OZ functions/features include: fully customizable user interface screens; all standard collections transactions; local, direct SQL and on-line web query access to the data--all protected by a security system; custom reports, invoices and labels; and a user manual. Most importantly, the biocollections community is actively informing and guiding the development of OZ, which is overseen by the PI, co-PI, a Project Manager and an Advisory Board at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum (KLINHM). Community partners and collaborators in OZ's development include the US Organization for Biodiversity Information CUSOBI), many MUSE installations, the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the National Museum of Natural History, Leiden, The Netherlands. Development of OZ is part of a larger USOBI informatics initiative to build and support software tools for integrating biocollections data with other biotic, geospatial and climatic data, sets. KUNHM's commitment to this project includes creation of new positions for the PI and Project Manager.
