Imago’s role in the promotion of data accessibility, metadata sharing, reproducibility of science, and preservation of digital objects

Abstract

Imago is a prototypic ‘next-generation’ digital repository that is dynamically linked to the collection management databases supported by a unique partnership between the IU Libraries and the Center for Biological Research Collections. Imago is the next stage in the metamorphosis of research data that are currently housed, in the form of physical collection objects, in the collections of the Indiana University Herbarium, the Indiana University Paleontology Collection, and the William R. Adams Zooarchaeology Lab. By taking advantage of dynamic cyberinfrastructure, high-throughput digitization workflows are enabled to build preservation-quality digital research products (3D scans, scanned 35 mm film, specimen photographs etc.), robust metadata integration, and robust linkages to propagate changes in taxonomy, georeferencing, or other augmentations to the existing metadata. Imago also greatly facilitates the discoverability of these collection objects and their metadata to the broader scientific and public community by providing a versatile framework that readily interacts with the API of large-scale biodiversity data aggregators, online curated galleries of images and 3D objects, and citizen-science platforms.