Bugs' metadata
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by
majortim
Hmm I thi I'm not the 1st to ask this question, but, why wasn't the metadata collected when the insects were phtographed? Or were the picture taken automatically?
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by
joanball
scientist
There are a few reasons for that. We actually started by entering data directly from the labels instead of photographing. But, it takes longer, fewer people can participate, and without photographs we have no record to check for mistakes. When entering data on this scale, a LOT of mistakes tend to creep in. It is also much faster to photograph, and it's faster to enter data from magnified images than it is to enter data from the tiny labels directly. Of course, the process of BOTH photographing and then entering the data may take longer, BUT now we can solicit help from people outside of the museum. And the data quality is better because we have the photograph of labels to check. See the most recent blog on how we now check NfN data.
In terms of entering data during the process of photographing... it would be very disruptive to the process. We have an assembly-line process going now that doesn't involve looking at the labels in detail.
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