AMUNATCOLL: 2.2 million specimens online
As technical coordinator of the AMUNATCOLL project (2018–2021) I led the IT system that digitised the natural history collections of the Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University: a database of about 2.2 million records of plant, fungal and animal specimens, biological samples, bibliographic sources and multimedia. Its metadata follow the ABCD 2.06 and Darwin Core standards. The system implements the SEPP model (Scientific, Educational, Public and Practical use): full open access, standard metadata and tools for data mining and statistical and spatial analysis, with a web portal and a mobile application for field surveys.
What open data sharing through GBIF achieves
We followed the fate of the more than 2.2 million records shared through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) for over three years: about 123,000 downloads, 45 billion records downloaded and on average three scientific publications a week using the data, across 12 research areas from taxonomy and ecology to climate science.
IT challenges in collection systems
Drawing on this implementation, we grouped the IT challenges of online collection systems into four areas: requirements, digitisation, design and technology, highlighting the often underestimated essentials for teams building their own systems.
Assessing and increasing the value of collections
Funding for collections should reflect their value. We defined weighted criteria for evaluating a collection and automated the calculation of a Relativistic Collection Value in the CollMan portal. A 2026 preprint with Jerzy Błoszyk proposes a framework of five dimensions of scientific value and a typology of curatorial actions that increase it.
Publications
- The second life of collection - how the scientific value of natural history holdings can be deliberately increased (bioRxiv preprint, 2026)
- IT Challenges in Designing and Implementing Online Natural History Collection Systems (Diversity, 2025)
- How Does Sharing Data from Research Institutions on Global Biodiversity Information Facility Enhance Its Scientific Value? (Diversity, 2025)
- Determination of the relativistic value of museum natural collections (Journal of Natural History, 2023)
- Open Access to the Digital Biodiversity Database: A Comprehensive Functional Model of the Natural History Collections (Diversity, 2022)
- Digitization and online access to data on natural history collections of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan: Assumptions and implementation of the AMUNATCOLL project (Biodiversity: Research and Conservation, 2022)
- The Adam Mickiewicz University Nature Collections IT system (AMUNATCOLL): metadata structure, database and operational procedures (Biodiversity: Research and Conservation, 2022)
- The Adam Mickiewicz University Nature Collections IT system (AMUNATCOLL): portal, mobile application and graphical interface (Biodiversity: Research and Conservation, 2022)
Project: AMUNATCOLL (technical coordinator). Software: AMUNATCOLL IT at amunatcoll.pl and CollMan.
Other research topics: Performance and energy of CFD on AMD EPYC · Divisible load scheduling · Digital twins and environmental simulation · Virtual Laboratory and remote instrumentation · all research themes.
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