sesar

SESAR is a digital data repository and sample metadata management system. We support individual researchers, museums, and collections across the globe to store information about their samples and to surface their sample collections and sample metadata for data discovery. Our data archiving and discovery services help researchers comply with funder mandates for FAIR data. We help organizations save time and money by providing a purpose-built catalog for users to find samples in their collections - instead of sinking time and money to developing and maintaining their own sample search and discovery interfaces, we help surface and connect sample collections and their derived data products,

No. SESAR provides digital archiving services for sample metadata, a sample management system, integrations to third party applications (e.g., StraboSpot), and a searchable catalog of sample records.

SESAR was founded in 2004 under a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) from the U.S. National Science Foundation. The grant established SESAR and the birth of the IGSN (at that time, the International Geo Sample Number). With increased community interest, SESAR has expanded to support archival of userful, rich metadata for samples in the archaeology, material science, and biology communities.

SESAR is developed and operated by the Geoinformatics Research Group at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, with support from additional collaborators. See the full team here.

SESAR is currently funded through a Cooperative Agreement with the NSF as part of the broader IEDA2 Data Facility. SESAR has had a remarkable history of 20+ years of continuous funding through the NSF, demonstrating its utility, value, and usability for the national and international science community.

SESAR has an impressive track-record of more than 20 years of continuous operation. Nevertheless, SESAR has contingency plans to ensure your sample records are persistent regardless of SESAR’s future existence. We ensure persistence of your data in the following ways:

1. By registering your samples for IGSN ID’s, a portion of your metadata is automatically cataloged at DataCite. You can learn more about what data we provide DataCite on our website here. Alternatively,  to see what your data looks like at DataCite, visit DataCite Commons and enter one of your IGSN ID’s in the search bar under “Works.”
2. Our database is backed up in triplicate - if SESAR’s funding were to ever cease, we would negotiate the transfer of data to a partner data repository that shares the same ethos as SESAR and ensure clear and thorough communication with our users in advance of any such transfer.

Read more about IGSN ID’s on our dedicated page here.

A persistent identifier is, “a digital identifier that is globally unique, persistent, machine resolvable and processable, and has an associated metadata schema. Generally, a long-lasting, managed, and registered unique digital reference (often in the form of a URL) to a research object that can be represented or described online” (U.S. Department of Energy, n.d.).

PIDs make it possible to unambiguously identify entities and facilitate the transfer of metadata keyed to them. PIDs have enjoyed widespread adoption in many aspects of scholarly communication, for instance, Open Researcher and Contributor Identifiers (ORCIDs) for people and Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for publications or datasets. PIDs for samples are not new; for instance, the International Generic (formerly Geological) Sample Number (IGSN) has been used by Earth, ecological, and space science communities for over 20 years. Archival Resource Keys (ARKs) have been used for samples in other disciplines such as archaeology for nearly as long.

No! SESAR is one of numerous IGSN allocating agents worldwide. These are entities that have the technical infrastructure and are registered and approved via DataCite to mint IGSN IDs for their users.

There are numerous benefits to registering samples with SESAR, including:

• A place to securely archive your sample metadata; SESAR is a data repository for key information about your samples or specimens. Keep all of your sample metadata in one place and never worry about a missing field book or numerous spreadsheets again!
• Make your samples FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable)

SESAR accepts high-quality sample metadata for any sample that complies with DataCite's guidance on IGSN ID use cases here. SESAR aspires to continuously adopt and adapt its schema and vocabularies to serve a wide variety of use cases. If there is a sample type you would like to see better-served by our system, let us know at info@geosamples.org.

Yes. Many of our core collection organizational users will first register a parent IGSN ID for a well or drill site and register segments of core as child IGSN IDs.

Visit our SESAR user manual here to learn more about leveraging SESAR to help you manage your group's samples, data, and outputs.

Learn more about SESAR codes here.

A controlled vocabulary is a standardized, pre-defined set of terms used to categorize information. SESAR users encounter these while registering sample data. Controlled vocabularies may not be perfect for all use cases, but they are important in enabling search and filter functionalities for discovery. 

We welcome user feedback! Please submit your suggestions here.

SESAR supports embargo of sample records for up to two years. Simply select an embargo date when submitting sample data or visit your MySESAR account to edit an existing embargo date.

Yes! SESAR currently allows upload of a limited number of photos per record and per MySESAR account. Users report that sample photos significantly increase the utility and usability of the sample records during sample searching or browsing - we encourage uploading of hand samples, key field sampling images, or any other contextual photos.

SESAR does not currently have capacity to support translation services, and we strongly suggest that you submit your sample data in English. However, we will accept submissions in any language that uses the Latin alphabet.

We recommend uploading field notebooks scans to an institutional repository or a generalist repository and adding a link to it in your sample metadata with SESAR. Some generalist repositories support linking of IGSNs.

For the latest statistics on what types of materials are in the SESAR sample catalog, visit our statistics page here.

SESAR provides a digital archive for sample metadata and a searchable catalog for those sample records. The presence of a sample record in the SESAR catalog does not guarantee the availability of sample material. Users should use the contact feature on a sample record landing page to get in touch with the sample steward or physical archive to inquire about the availability of a sample for reuse.

Congratulations! By registering your samples for IGSN IDs, you have taken a significant step to ensuring your samples are well-documented. This is important regardless of whether the sample will be stored long-term or will be destroyed during analysis. Visit our SESAR User Manual here to learn more about using IGSNs in datasets and publications.

To learn how to print and use IGSN QR codes, follow our documentation here.

Scholarly publishers have complex journal-specific workflows, training procedures, and policies and varying awareness of persistent identifiers for samples. Check with your specific journal for author guidance on how and where to place IGSNs and ask your editors or journal publisher staff for guidance as needed.

Read more about IGSN ID’s on our dedicated page here.

The IGSN e.V. is the non-profit organization, founded in 2011, behind the IGSN ID — the persistent identifier SESAR mints for your samples. ("e.V." is the German abbreviation for a registered association, though the organization is internationally governed.)

Originally, IGSN e.V. ran the central registration system that made IGSN IDs resolve. In 2021 it entered a partnership with DataCite, and since January 2023, IGSN IDs are registered through DataCite's DOI infrastructure. IGSN e.V. now focuses on the community side — maintaining a "community of communities" around the use of persistent identifiers for samples, and guiding how sample metadata standards evolve.

Find more information on the IGSN e.V.'s site here.

No. SESAR shares a defined subset of metadata with DataCite, not everything. To see what we currently share with DataCite, visit this page.

When SESAR registers your IGSN ID, it sends DataCite the core metadata needed to make the identifier resolvable and citable: things like the sample name, the registrant, key dates, and the resource type. We prioritize trying to share as much information as possible, fitting within DataCite's schema designed for broad use cases. This is what makes your sample discoverable in DataCite Commons and citable in the scholarly record. SESAR remains the home for your sample's full metadata profile — the detailed descriptive, spatial, and collection information — and the DataCite record links back to it.

DOIs are widely used across the scholarly world for papers, datasets, and now samples. Being a DOI means your sample is integrated into this infrastructure, which has the following advantages:

• Persistent resolution: IGSN IDs resolve through the same globally distributed doi.org network as every other DOI — the same system publishers, funders, libraries, and scholarly indexers already use and depend on. DataCite provides continuity and an institutional membership base that keeps identifiers resolving long-term.
• Citability: Journals and data repositories know how to handle DOIs. Your sample can be cited, linked, and tracked using workflows that exist today, though awareness and leading practices of citing samples is evolving with these stakeholders (see https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05295-z if you'd like to learn more about the current landscape).
• Connection to the wider scholarly record: Because samples, datasets, and publications share one identifier system, the links between them — such as "this paper used this sample, which produced this dataset" — become machine-readable through services like DataCite Commons.

Use of SESAR’s services is free for individual researchers funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Usage fees may apply for large U.S. or international collections. Contact us at info@geosamples.org for more information.

Visit DataCite Commons and enter one of your IGSN IDs in the search box. You'll see the record DataCite holds for that sample — the core metadata, the resource type, and the links connecting it back to its full profile in SESAR.

Do you know of another group working on best practices for sample identifiers? We would love to be connected via our email (info@geosamples.org).

YES! We are eager to collaborate with you or your community on software improvements, digital tool development, sample metadata profiles for disciplinary communities, and more. If you have a need and SESAR might be able to collaborate with you to solve it, we are eager to chat. Reach out to us at info@geosamples.org.