Loans

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The concept of a specimen loan is broad and includes any removal of specimens from a collection, temporary or permanent, with the exception of specimens that are destroyed. (“Discarded” is a specimen disposition.) Specimens which are permanently transferred to another collection or institution are loans of the the type, “transfer of custody” (in place of the oxymoron, “permanent loan”). The type “transfer of title” could be added when and if we include collections that are willing to release title to cataloged specimens.

In order to associate specimens with in-house projects or the projects of visiting researchers, the concept of loans can be further extended to include in-house usage. When users of specimens fail to cite these specimens in their publications, a degree of documentation, albeit indirect, exists in that the specimens are associated with a loan, which is associated with a project, which can be associated with the publication.

A specimen “exchange” between collections is two transactions: A loan and an accession. This arrangement well reflects the reality of incompleted exchanges, and takes advantage of the fact that we are dealing with both outgoing specimens and incoming specimens.

Loan Number

A Loan “number” is comprised of four parts:

• Institution: the institution controlling the loan
• Prefix: Typically, the year the loan was initiated. Character, not required.
• Number: Required, Integer.
• Suffix: Generally, the collection controlling the loan. Character, not required.

Type

Loan type serves to categorize the loan as:

• Returnable – A normal loan from which the return of all material is expected.
• Consumable – The material is intended for a destructive analysis, and its return is not anticipated.
• Transfer of Custody – The recieving collection will assume custody for an indefinite period of time, if not title, to the material.
• Legacy – Not valid for new loans, and the Type should be updated to one of the above values for earlier loans.

If multiple Types apply, consider separate loans for separate Types, or enter the most important one (i.e., “returnable”).

Status is essentially the degree to which the transaction has been completed. There are six values (a few too many?)”:

• closed
• in process
• open
• open in-house
• partially returned
• unknown

Loan Agents Agents (generally people) are associated with loans in various capacities, and these vary among collections. At a minimum, a loan is authorized by at least one person and received by another person. Some collections require multiple authorizations, and at the recipient’s end, the person accepting responsibility for the material may not be the person physically receiving or using the material.

Nature of Material: A description summarizing the overall content of the loan. This description will appear on the loan invoice. It should be explicit and concise, but it does not need include details on a specimen-by-specimen basis.

Instructions: Directions to the borrower on such things as storage and return of the loaned items.

Description: I don’t know? Why do we need another text field in addition to Nature of Material and Remarks?

Remarks: Any annotations that will not be included on the Loan invoice.

Initiated Date is the date on which preparation of the loan began. A default value would be the date on which the loan was first recorded in the database.

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Due Date is the date that a loan of the Type Returnable is expected to be returned to the lending collection. This date may be used to search for overdue loans, and/or to generate automated reminders to the appropriate agents.

Shipping Date is the date that the loaned material was shipped from the collection issuing the loan. The Shipping Date should be consistent with any documentation provided by the carrier, e.g., a waybill, bill of lading, etc.

Receipt Acknowledged is the date the agent receiving the loan submitted acknowledgment of its arrival to lending collection.

Returned Date
is the date that a loan of the type Returnable was received back at the collection from which the loan was issued.

Permits: A loan may be authorized under one or more permits, and these may include both the senders and to the recipients. Such authorizations should be recorded by associating the loan with a permit that must be already be in the database. Recording this information may be critical to reporting to the permit-issuing authority, and hence a legal requirement for conducting a loan.

Projects: A loan is almost always made in support of one or more projects, and it is in project descriptions that the scientific justification for the loan should be described.

Data loans document data usage, and are generally used when a project downloads data from Arctos without examining specimens. Data loans form a special relationship between a loan and a cataloged item, rather than a loan and a specimen part. Data loans are not meant as a replacement for “digital” loans, in which a specimen part is imaged (or otherwise digitized), as “digital” loans concern physical objects and handling specimens. Subsequent usage of digital media (including that generated in “digital” loans) may best be recorded as data loans. Curators may wish to create a new loan number series for data loans, although this is not required. This entry documents creation of a data loan for illustrative purposes.

1. Found publication vaguely citing Arctos
2. Created publication agents in Arctos
3. Since the available PDF was a reprint, used the DOI to look up original publication information (http://www.google.com/search?q=DOI%3A+10.1111%2Fj.1472-4642.2008.00547.x)
4. Created Publication in Arctos
5. Added Media to the publication
6. Created Arctos loan of type “data”
7. Downloaded data loan template
8. Searched Arctos for scientific names cited in publication
   
9. Downloaded results, copied catalog numbers to data loan template.
10. Filled in rest of values in data loan template, copy/paste to all cells. Save as CSV.
11. Uploaded to data loan loader, clicked OK a couple times.
12. Created project, added loan, publication, and media created for publication

Total time: ~10 minutes, mostly spent researching and creating Agents. Result: http://arctos.database.museum/project/different-climatic-envelopes-among-invasive-populations-may-lead-to-underestimations-of-current-and-future-biological-invasions
The collections used, even though there was no formal loan request and no physical specimen usage, receive quantifiable credit for specimen data used. Future Hieracium added to Arctos will not be included in this loan, so it will be possible to quickly identify specimens which could not have been used, even though the lack of citations in the paper makes it impossible to determine which specimens were actually used. Additionally, if current Hieracium specimens are later determined to be some other species, those data will remain as part of the loan, perhaps explaining yet-undetected anomalies in the publication.