For the last six months we have been using it to create taxonomic index for NMS insect collection, and it may be a time to summarise our experience. Papis is a light-weight CMS that can be used as stand-alone or multi-user solution. Its functionality includes pretty much all you need to manage collection successfully: specimen/lot records; embedded taxonomy from Catalog of Life; collection events; specimen preparations: dissections and slides, DNA extractions, and histology; specimen and locality images; specimen and collection label printing, including barcode labels (Code128, datamatrix, and QRCode); loans; DwCA export.
What I like. It does not require (or requires very minimal) institutional IT support; it has rather intuitive logic, supports main curatorial tasks. For me, my familiarity with FileMaker Pro was also a reason, it is easy to make minor adjustments without bothering developer, although I must specially acknowledge Nikolas Ioannou
's enthusiasm and responsiveness. Features that are quite important for our project are rapid entry; relative easiness of import, free barcode labels, fast and flexible generator for collecting labels.
Vladimir Blagoderov - United Kingom
That's what we use in Zamorano after trying many different programs.
Jesús Orozco - Honduras
Hello everybody, i would like to tell you my experience with the PAPIS program.
First of all, it is an amazing program, it is a very complete program, it has a lot of things to save all your data well organised.
I think it is a very useful tool to have all your collection digitalised.
At the beginning it can be a little bit difficult to use but a few days later when you are acquainted with the database it is very intuitive.
A very interesting part is the "Expeditions" where you can save your expedition and you can have linked your specimens about that entomological trip. Very useful.
I would like to thank to Nikolas Ioannou
for all his help, a very kind man who has helped me with all my doubts.
Arturo Iglesias - Spain
I couldn’t wait to setup Papis, so I did late this afternoon. Papis looks fantastic, with way more functionality than I realized or will likely ever use.
I feel very fortunate to have discovered Papis.
It is a very remarkable program!!
Dick A. Arnold - United States