Materiality and context of specimen labels: exposing frictions between local and global priorities in the preservation of ‘non-prototypical’ records

Abstract Specimen labels are frequently considered metadata by biologists worldwide, acquiring the form of a source of ‘primary biodiversity data’. Frequently, the materiality of specimen labels is considered problematic, given the difficulties in translating the data contained on them to machine-readable formats, possibly hampering the comparability of biological data. However, this framework frequently ignores the fact that the materiality of specimen labels is a manifestation of the historical and social frictions of the agents involved in documenting biodiversity. Here, we show how the materiality of specimen labels reflects the epistemic frictions of agents responsible for fieldwork and laboratory documentation. Our results show how the demands of recorders and collectors are frequently manifested physically during specimen label creation in different moments of its life-cycle, while exposing the socio-cultural struggles in preparing and preserving this type of record, and the institutional constraints in their curation, affecting policy-making at the institutional level.