Labels, Unique Identifiers & Barcodes


Code 49 insect label
This 2 dimensional, 2 stack label measures
0.56 x 0.315 inches. The barcode encodes the unique
identifier "UGCA000100" that is also printed on the
label in human readable form.

Discover Life | All Living Things | Planning | Labels, Unique Identifiers & Barcodes
Overview

Our goal is to label events and objects with unique identifiers so that we can easily share information about them across databases. This page is a forum to share ideas and information on how best to do this.

Although our immediate focus is how to use barcode technology to label and track museum specimens, such as pinned insects, we hope to find general inter-disciplinary solutions that will permit us to integrate a wide array of data, including information on observations, sound recordings, images, molecular sequences, chemical profiles, and climatic variables.

We will explore how best to assign identifiers so that they are globally unique and do not conflict across institutions. In addition, through the help of Intermec Corporation, we plan to present technical guides on how to use barcodes to label and track objects. The page's immediate focus concerns standard barcode symbologies, e. g., Code 49 (shown above), Code 128, MicroPDF417, and Data Matrix.

The page is in an incipient stage. Information and suggestions are more than welcome.

Cheers,
Pick
<pick@discoverlife.org>

29 July, 1999

Discover Life | All Living Things | Planning | Labels, Unique Identifiers & Barcodes

Last updated: 06 January, 2005