[NHCOLL-L:557] new Web Site

[Edward G. Riley]

Colleagues:  (our appologies for crosspostings)

     The TIARA Organismal Bioinformatics Project group is pleased to make
the first public announcement of the TIARA web site
(http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/tiara/). The new TIARA site contains an
implementation of one notion of the "taxon home page" concept. The site
consists of a highly interactive, application-like, interface that uses
several user-selectable "finders" to quickly facilitate the location of any
of >40,000 taxon pages generated on-the-fly from underlying data. Currently
implemented finders include those for scientific names (search and
classification options; >40,000 taxa included), common names (search and
list options; >3500 English and Spanish names currently included), and
several, smaller, "special projects" finders. Each taxon page consists of
one or more screens, each of which displays data pertaining to a particular
information type, e.g., maps, taxon lists, web links, images. Links for
particular information types appear on a taxon page only if that type of
information is available for the active taxon. Navigate to the taxon page
for the order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) to get a feel for the
multi-screen approach to the taxon page concept (click on the different
text links under the "Show" function group).
    Data behind the TIARA interface are currently limited. General holdings
information is available for >30,000 species contained in the Texas A&M
University Insect Collection (TAMUIC) (we invite browsing by systematists
actively engaged in revisionary projects!). Texas county-level distribution
data is available for a scattering of taxa, but particularly for the
Araneae, Ephemeroptera, Odonata, Scarabaeidae and Tabanidae. Links to ca.
1400 entomological web sites are available from "Web Links" listings,
primarily located on ordinal-level insect taxon pages. Approximately 170
images (all Odonata) are currently available. Additional data --
particularly images, maps and specimen-level data from the TAMUIC are in
preparation and will be added to the site episodically.
    The current TIARA web site is a functional prototype developed from an
interdisciplinary collaboration of biologists and computer scientists
(please view the TIARA "Collaborators" page for details). Various aspects
of the project were supported by several grants, with principal funding
coming from a grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
    We invite comments on the TIARA site from the community, and we issue
an invitation to individual biologists to contact us if they are interested
in joining us in this collaborative bioinformatics project (see the TIARA
"Join Us" page for more information). Please e-mail all comments to John
Oswald (TIARA Project Manager) at j-oswald at tamu.edu.

John D. Oswald
Asst. Prof. & Curator
Department of Entomology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-2475

Edward G. Riley
Assistant Curator (Collections Manager)
Department of Entomology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX  77843
Phone (409) 845-9711
FAX (409) 845-6305