[2] This mechanism of contributing to specimen data arose from a project[3] initiated by the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris (MNHN) in March 2019,[4] and is motivated (in part) by "the world-wide importance of natural history collections, (which) are at risk because they are critically underfunded or undervalued.

A contributing factor for this apparent neglect is the lack of a professional reward system that quantifies and illustrates the breadth and depth of expertise required to collect and identify specimens, maintain them, digitize their labels, mobilize the data, and enhance these data as errors and omissions are identified by stakeholders.

This having been done, the records of plant and animal specimens contained in GBIF downloads (permanently referenced by DOIs), together with the papers derived from them,[12] and linked to the Bionomia people profiles.

On pressing "Help Attribute" for a profile, GBIF specimen records with strings forming part of the person's name appear.

When one is examining the specimen, one is in the GBIF database itself, and when one notes an error, it is possible to notify the problem by email to the curator of the institution which provided the data.