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Getting organised
This project treats each separate photograph as a uniquely valuable record of the location, date, time and habitat of a nudibranch or flatworm. Therefore, we need this information, or as much of it as you can, for each image. If you are not already doing so, it would be a good idea to record this information for all your photographs, or at least for all the photographs that might one day be a useful record of marine life (probably this means all of them!). Of course, it is nearly impossible to write all this information on a slide mount, or to incorporate everything into a filename for a digital image. Far better to use a unique identification number on each photograph or file, and link the other information to this number in a notebook or form. You may wish to download and use this Microsoft Excel® format spreadsheet for data entry (this file and others are also linked on the resources and contacts page). If you are already using some similar system (whether it be a computer database or field notebook), there is probably no need to change. Those with internet search facilities will find that there are many image management databases available that do the same thing, with various degrees of sophistication.Creating a unique numbering system to apply to each image can be as simple or complex as you like, but usually simple is best. A consecutive numbering system is fine, as long as you remember where you are up to, or you may want to use some system incorporating the date. A system commencing with the year, followed by 4 or more digits for a sequential number, has the advantage that it can be applied retrospectively when you get time to go back to older photographs. Further discussion of these options can be found in a useful article on Image numbering, filing and retrieval by Ernst Robl.
Whatever system you use, it will be necessary, at least for our purposes at the museum, to add a short prefix to distinguish different photographers and to ensure each image label is unique. For example, Robin Wilson's 99th photograph in 2003 might be numbered RSW-2003-0099.
For comments on these web pages please contact Robin Wilson, rwilson@museum.vic.gov.au