Hello all -
In my experience creating and maintaining databases for tracking pest
information and working with the IPMWG I have come to the conclusion
that the id of the trap is not where your focus should be. In pest
tracking you are actually tracking a specific location. The trap in that
location will most likely change many times and may be of different
types but the location will never change. You many not track pests in
that location but the location will always be there.
The system I use in Zpest (and can easily be duplicated in a
spreadsheet) is to use a drill down system such as this:
For example let’s say your museum comprises 5 buildings – 2 downtown and
3 in the northwest suburb. You would then have 2 global identifiers. I
call these Areas. One Area would be “Downtown”, the other “Northwest”.
Next would be the Building name or number. Within each Building are 1 or
more Floor numbers. Next would be a Room number and then a Location. The
Location is a description that would make it easy for someone to find
where the trap was located. Some examples - “South corner under last
window”, “Left side of stairway door”. Use whatever you would tell
someone you sent to get the trap at that location.
This information combined dictates the location of the trap. “Downtown,
Building 2, Floor 2, Room 3, Left side of stairway door”. The actual
Trap ID could be the date the trap was received combined with a
sequential number counting the traps received. This would be
09/27/2017-1, 09/27/2017-2, and so on.
“Downtown, Building 2, Floor 2, Room 3, Left side of stairway door,
09/27/2017-2” added to the date the trap was inspected gives you the
information create reports showing the effectiveness of your pest
management and trends in pest counts – which is usually the reason for
tracking. These fields combined give you the location of where the trap
is or was. This can be done with a spread sheet or with a program
written specifically for tracking pests.
So I suggest these fields for tracking:
Area
Building
Floor
Room
Location
Trap Id
Trap Type
Much work on this subject has been done by the IPMWG and more
information can be found on the Museumpests.net site. A good document
discussing this is this product by the IPMWG -
https://museumpests.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Updated-_Field_List_for_Pest_Observation_Databases.pdf
Leon Zak
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