[Feature Request]: Addition of Preparations Field to Fields Searchable By Public

[rowseydm]

Right now on CSVColl there isn't a way to search for specimens of a specific preparation type - this is useful for filtering records that have the material needed by the user (e.g. skin, skull, tissue, fluid specimens). Because this field typically can contain multiple prep types separated by a character such as a pipe, semicolon, or comma, the ability to recognize partial matches or to search multiple prep types would be most useful.

[themerekat]

Thanks for your feedback @rowseydm ! The Preparations field is not one of the indexed fields, so I believe this isn't included in the search fields because such searches would take a long time. Do people who are not associated with a specific collection need to access this type of information often?

[rowseydm]

Depending on the research question of interest, only certain preparation types are applicable for collections users. For example, someone interested in performing cranial morphometrics would not be interested in our holdings for skin-only specimens, and someone looking to destructively sample study skins for tissue samples would not be interested in borrowing from our formalin-fixed fluid holdings. As of right now it looks like this information is only available when inspecting each individual record. If it were possible even to display the preparations field on the table view of the public results, I think that would make it easier for users to find the appropriate specimens with relevant preparations.

[themerekat]

Thanks for the clarification!

[themerekat]

Potentially use traits or material sample, alternatively?