Hi everyone,
I’ve been working with Specify for a few months now and it has been an amazing tool. I’m using it in a slightly different way than originally intended: instead of managing a physical collection, I’m using Specify to manage a “virtual collection”.
In other words, I’m building a database of specimens stored in other institutions that are relevant to my research. I need to keep track of these specimens—for planning collection visits, for quick reference, or simply because many collections don’t provide public databases. Fortunately, many specimens are described in the literature or have 3D models available online. Whenever I find a relevant taxon, I add it to my database.
Maintaining a database like this is challenging because the information is scattered across many sources, and it’s easy to introduce errors. Thankfully, with modern LLMs and agents, we now have tools that can help with this kind of curation.
So I decided to build an MCP server that connects my Specify instance with external services such as GBIF, PBDB, iDigBio, Macrostrat, and others. This allows me to ask a model to cross‑check my records against multiple sources—taxonomy, geology, stratigraphy, etc. The MCP also integrates with Zotero, BHL, and OpenAlex to retrieve bibliographic information.
The MCP is available here:
Conseil-MCP
It’s still in early development, but I would love to receive feedback from the Specify developers.
As a complement, I’ve also improved my browser add‑on Specify+. Since I work extensively with 3D models, I wanted a way to preview them directly from the browser. The extension now supports this functionality and even taking measurements directly from the UI:
Specify+
Thanks for your time, and I’m happy to discuss ideas or improvements.
Hi everyone,
I’ve been working with Specify for a few months now and it has been an amazing tool. I’m using it in a slightly different way than originally intended: instead of managing a physical collection, I’m using Specify to manage a “virtual collection”.
In other words, I’m building a database of specimens stored in other institutions that are relevant to my research. I need to keep track of these specimens—for planning collection visits, for quick reference, or simply because many collections don’t provide public databases. Fortunately, many specimens are described in the literature or have 3D models available online. Whenever I find a relevant taxon, I add it to my database.
Maintaining a database like this is challenging because the information is scattered across many sources, and it’s easy to introduce errors. Thankfully, with modern LLMs and agents, we now have tools that can help with this kind of curation.
So I decided to build an MCP server that connects my Specify instance with external services such as GBIF, PBDB, iDigBio, Macrostrat, and others. This allows me to ask a model to cross‑check my records against multiple sources—taxonomy, geology, stratigraphy, etc. The MCP also integrates with Zotero, BHL, and OpenAlex to retrieve bibliographic information.
The MCP is available here:
Conseil-MCP
It’s still in early development, but I would love to receive feedback from the Specify developers.
As a complement, I’ve also improved my browser add‑on Specify+. Since I work extensively with 3D models, I wanted a way to preview them directly from the browser. The extension now supports this functionality and even taking measurements directly from the UI:
Specify+
Thanks for your time, and I’m happy to discuss ideas or improvements.