Natural Collections Descriptions (NCD)

NCD is a draft standard that was submitted for ratification in 2008. Personnel changes in several critical roles caused the ratification process to stall, so the specification has remained as a draft since. The in 2016 reestablished Collection Descriptions Interest Group has decided to discontinue the development of NCD in favour of a new TDWG Collections Description metadata standard. To follow the work of this group, visit its repository.

Header section

Title

Natural Collections Descriptions (NCD)

Date created

2008-08-12

Status

Draft standard

Category

Technical specification

Permanent IRI

http://www.tdwg.org/standards/312

Abstract

Natural Collections Description (NCD) is a proposed data standard for describing collections of natural history materials at the collection level; one NCD record describes one entire collection. Collection descriptions are electronic records that document the holdings of an organisation as groups of items, which complement the more traditional item-level records such as are produced for a single specimen or a library book. NCD is tailored to natural history. It lies between general resource discovery standards such as Dublin Core (DC) and rich collection description standards such as the Encoded Archival Description (EAD). The NCD standard covers all types of natural history collections, such as specimens, original artwork, archives, observations, library materials, datasets, photographs or mixed collections such as those that result from expeditions and voyages of discovery.

Creator

Natural Collections Descriptions interest group, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG)

Citation

Natural Collections Descriptions interest group (2008_ Natural Collections Descriptions (NCD), version 2008-08-12. Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) http://www.tdwg.org/standards/312