Re: Barcodes on insect specimens
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 14:51:24 -0800 To: pick@pick.uga.edu (John Pickering) From: "John T. Longino" <longinoj@evergreen.edu> Subject: Re: Barcodes on insect specimens >Jack, > >Some mis-conceptions need to be cleared up. > >(1) Code 49 is an industry standard. It is not (and may never have been) >proprietary to Intermec. Intermec invented it. It is my understanding from >Sprague that we can purchase printers from other companies to print code 49 >labels, for example. I don't know about readers. Good to know this, thanks. The fact remains that almost no one but a few people in Intermec and a handful of biologists have ever heard of code49. >(2) Code 128 simply does not pack in enough information in the space >available that we need. It is not the way to go. It may read more easily >than your existing 3-stack code 49 labels, but so do my 2-stack labels. >Hence, my reluctance to scan all your rogadines. Picking up each specimen >is your greatest handicap. Put the barcode labels face up! From all the >information that is available to me now, I think that INBio will make a >huge mistake is it goes with code 128 for its insect labels. I'm not convinced that code128 won't hold what we need, since all we need is a unique alphanumeric code. I'm still checking on that. And I will not put symbology face up, nor will any entomologist I know accept that. >Furthermore, the new "imager" technology is far superior than than the old >laser scanners that we are now using. It works like a digital camera and >should speed reading code 49 labels considerably, even the 3-stack ones >that INBio and you are using. No more trying to line up each stack >perfectly. Tell me more. Is this getting close to optical character recognition, where we won't need a symbology at all? Then I might accept a face-up label, that has all the locality data and a unique number. Any ideas on who might maintain a registry of barcode labels being used? Jack ****************************************************** John T. Longino Lab I, The Evergreen State College Olympia WA 98505 USA longinoj@evergreen.edu Ants of Costa Rica on the Web at http://www.evergreen.edu/ants Project ALAS at http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/ALAS/ALAS.html ******************************************************
| Discover Life in America | Science | Unique Identifiers & Barcodes | Correspondence | John Longino - 8 July, 1999 |