[NHCOLL-L:486] Re: natural history collections database

[Doug Yanega]

>*All* information on the label is stored in the database.  Too bad you
>didn't take Doug's bet regarding lat/longs because you would have a little
>more spending money.

Actually, I was - as you yourself noted below - going on only what one sees
when one accesses your website and queries the database. The output fields
are pretty limited, and there is no immediate indication there to tell the
user that there is much more information in the database than is visible
from the query interface. I'll note that I'd also intended this as a
private message, largely because I *wasn't* sure I was seeing all there was
to it, and I was hoping to find out a few more details privately.

>We also
>record the nearest named place, automatically taken from a gazetteer of
>Australian placenames.

Automatically? But if a name is misspelled, or if there are multiple places
with the same name, certainly no automated process is going to be capable
of resolving the problem?

>The worrying thing for me about Doug's comments is that he thinks our
>database is a spreadsheet-style database.  Doug seems to think that because
>we choose to present the information over the Internet in a user-friendly
>spreadsheet-type format that this is how the information is stored in our
>database.

Like I said, when you're in the query interface you're not told what sort
of structure and content exists in the database behind it all. Unless you
dig around elsewhere on the website, you're left guessing as to whether
that's all there is, and how it's entered and organized. I apologize if it
came across as an accusatory tone, rather than inquisitive - I probably
could have answered some of those questions myself if I'd poked around more
extensively.

Peace,


Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
           http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82