[NHCOLL-L:341] Re: Data security and availability.

[Arthur H. Harris]

"Donna I. Ford-Werntz" wrote:
> 
> Andy (& others), I am very interested in hearing thoughts and discussion on
> this!  While there may be a legitimate right of public access to most data
> (I really don't know the legalities of this), I don't believe that all
> details should be made available over the web.  In particular, my
> preference for if/when our collections database is put on the internet
> would be to withhold site specific database fields (i.e., provide county,
> but not location or lat/long) and to protect the collector's identity.

Our feeling is similar on specific localities.  We have our
searchable herpetology database up and running (but on a blind site
for the moment until we can make it more user friendly), but with
locality data only down to county.  Other collections will be going
up in the near future and some (such as some of the cultural
material) will be further restricted.

Art Harris
-- 
Laboratory for Environmental Biology
Centennial Museum (Natural and Cultural History)
University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX  79968-0915
phone (915)747-6985; fax (915)747-5808; aharris at utep.edu
http://www.utep.edu/leb     http://www.utep.edu/museum