About the Specify Collections Consortium

The Specify Collections Consortium (SCC), founded in 2018, is a collaborative, open-source software community of engaged collection institutions with a vision to advance research and education uses of biological specimen and sample information. A Board of Directors, along with Research and Technology Advisory Committees drawn from member institutions, govern the Consortium and determine its software and technical service priorities.

The Consortium advances the interests of its members through engineering, deployment, and support of software technologies that facilitate the creation, curation, discovery, and scientific utilization of the information and knowledge associated with biological collections. We have partnered with natural history museums and biological repositories for more than 30 years. Today, Specify handles research data at biological collections institutions and consortia around the globe.

Mission Statement

The Specify Collections Consortium (SCC) advances scientific research and innovation by managing the data from biology and geology collections and by supporting and fostering the collections community.

With engagement and collaboration from its member institutions, the SCC will:

Engineer innovative, robust, open-source software for the acquisition, integration, and curation of digital collections data;
Create tools promoting FAIR principles; and
Foster collaborative networks to facilitate the use of collections data in broader initiatives.

Core Values

Strong Community

Member-Driven

We are a membership based organization dedicated to fostering a supportive, collaborative network. We succeed by supporting and connecting institutions, curators, collection managers, researchers, educators, decision makers, and aggregators to collectively advance the practice of collections management.

Inclusive

We are committed to benefiting the entire biological and geological collections community through leveraging the strength of larger members in order to advance the entire community.

Reciprocal Knowledge

We empower all members by sharing procedural and software knowledge, experience, and developments with all members of the SCC community.

Robust Software

Quality Tools

We develop robust, secure, user-friendly, state-of-the-art software and tools to ensure collections information is high-quality, consistent, and easily shared to maximize its research impact.

User-Centric

We strive to make our members' work easier and more effective. Our software design and support services are centered on creating an efficient, intuitive, and reliable user experience.

Innovative & Flexible

We are committed to continuous evolution. We provide the flexibility to meet the changing needs of the biological and geological collections community.

Integrity

Open & Accessible

We champion open-source principles in our software and support open-access to scientific data.

Stewardship

We believe in the foundational value of scientific collections. We act with integrity to support the institutions that preserve our critical biological and geological heritage, ensuring their data can serve research and society for generations to come.

Consortium Value

The Consortium Advantage: Shared Investment, Exponential Return

At its core, the Specify Collections Consortium (SCC) is a collaborative endeavor built on a shared goal: to create and maintain accessible cyberinfrastructure for biodiversity and geology collections globally. When an institution joins the SCC, they are not simply acquiring a service; they are becoming a vital partner in this collective mission to advance global science.

Membership in the SCC is a strategic investment in shared, global infrastructure. It is the backbone that ensures the long-term sustainability and continuous evolution of Specify software, which is freely shared under the GPL 3.0 license and can be compiled and hosted by anyone, anywhere.

Unmatched Expert Support

A critical advantage of the consortium is access to a support team with substantial and specialized expertise. The SCC provides professionals who understand the unique challenges of collections management and have decades of experience in the software, services, and community we serve.

Beyond technical support, we provide expert consultation on software deployment and use, data management, best practices for data publishing, and effective workflows based on extensive collections experience. This prevents small data modeling or workflow questions from becoming major roadblocks.

The SCC removes a common barrier faced by collections and curatorial staff when working with institutional IT or general software teams. Immediate access to domain-specific expertise is a powerful resource that a single institution would otherwise need to build internally.

Specify Cloud Advantage: Fully Managed Solution

In 2018, we launched Specify Cloud so organizations can run a fully functional Specify instance without local hardware or dedicated local IT support. This is a standard component of consortium membership.

Hosting includes timely installation of new releases, backups of databases and digital assets, and constant monitoring. SCC staff specialize in infrastructure, deployment, updates, and security across the full Specify ecosystem.

With Specify Cloud, institutions can avoid staffing dedicated system administration, DevOps, and database roles for day-to-day operations, enabling curatorial teams to focus on collections data and research while receiving faster, highly cost-effective support.

An Equitable Contribution

The SCC is a collaborative, non-profit partnership between our software team and member institutions. Membership fees are proportional to institutional scale, resources, and needs. This model enables larger institutions to help smaller collections participate while ensuring long-term software sustainability.

The goal is equity: institutions of all sizes can participate and benefit. Pooled contributions sustain expert development and support teams, funding shared global infrastructure for decades to come. Membership pricing details are available in SCC Membership Rights and Responsibilities .

A Platform Built for Flexibility and Customization

Collections management is inherently diverse. The data structures needed for a herbarium sheet differ greatly from those for an ethanol-preserved fish, fossil, or DNA sample. Even within a discipline, requirements vary by specialty, institution, and workflow.

SCC membership enables institutions to use a single platform across many disciplines, including botany, mycology, mammalogy, invertebrate zoology, ichthyology, herpetology, vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, paleobotany, ornithology, entomology, geology, mineralogy, meteoritics, petrology, and more.

Specify allows users to modify interface schema and data-entry forms, choose relevant tables and fields, and design workflows that match collection processes. The platform conforms to collection needs, not the other way around.

Data Publishing & Mobilization

Specify supports robust data sharing through global standards such as Darwin Core and GBIF extensions. Data can be shared publicly through institutional web portals and aggregators including GBIF, Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and iDigBio.

By mobilizing collections data, Specify increases visibility and scientific utility, making specimen records accessible to a global research community and demonstrating collections' strategic value to institutions and administrators.

A Sustainable Collaboration

The consortium model is central to SCC sustainability. Member participation in SCC direction and success helps ensure Specify evolves with scientific and operational needs over time. Before the SCC, Specify advanced for nearly 30 years through grant funding. Under the membership model, development velocity and community growth have increased, strengthening our ability to support collections science for the next 30+ years.

Conclusion

The Specify Collections Consortium is a strategic partnership that enables institutions of all sizes to manage collections data with robust, flexible tools and expert support. By pooling resources, consortium members sustain an expert-driven platform that addresses today's challenges and continuously evolves to meet tomorrow's needs, securing the long-term value of collections and their data.