[NHCOLL-L:937] a grandiose but (hopefully) practical idea

[Doug Yanega]

Hi, all. A few of you may recall a request I issued some time ago, about
anyone who might have taxonomic authority file databases (hierarchical
listings of higher taxon names, in particular) they could share. The
response was not good, though I know there are people out there with such
databases. If this interests you, I hope you'll read on, and bear with my
long-windedness. Some recent communications I've received, and some of the
issues raised recently on taxacom have got me thinking again, and the thing
that keeps coming to mind is the following:

Why is there no website or network established where taxonomists and museum
scientists can trade authority file databases?

There are certainly various and sundry websites that have checklists,
catalogs, searchable databases, phylogenies, and so forth, and these are
incredibly helpful, but I don't know of ANY (at least not for insects) that
offer database files that users can download and import directly into their
personal or institutional databases. I suggest that it's long past time to
remedy this, and (here's the amusing part of it) one of my inspirations for
this is the "Napster Online Community" - a model of data sharing that WORKS
(or worked, as the case may be). We could do essentially the same thing
with authority files as Napster does with songs, even without a central
organizing entity.

If person X has a file of all the Trichoptera genera of the world, person Y
has a file of all the Saturniidae, person Z has a file of all the
Cerambycidae, and so forth, even though each may have their own formats, in
different database programs, and with their own little quirks, they should
still be able to share the *bulk* of the data, so instead of each person
having only one small database which is exactly in the form they prefer,
they can trade files until each has a whole array of more generalized files
which may only need slight tweaking to be converted into their preferred
format. If one person's database is slightly outdated or incomplete, then
others may be able to finish the task, and make the updated version
available to everyone. I think this is an extremely desirable thing to
strive for, given (1) our general woes about limited funding and personnel
(2) the extremely wasteful nature of "reinventing the wheel" - if ONE
person has already created a hierarchical database of all the bee genera of
the world (see below), then NO ONE should ever have to perform the same
task again.

Yes, I can imagine there's a lot of jealous guarding of one's efforts; but
most of this can be traced to the continuing lack of recognition in the
scientific community in general for purely electronic "publications". I see
the change a-coming, admittedly, with citations to webpages appearing with
increasing frequency in journal articles (and in people's CV's), but it's
still nothing close to what it should be, and electronic files that are NOT
associated with webpages are still not accorded much formal recognition. We
all, understandably, want credit for our work, but I'm also willing to bet
that we can figure out a way to accommodate this need and still manage to
cooperate. And while I'm obviously personally only concerned with the
Arthopoda, I do realize that botanists, mammalogists, etc. stand to be part
of any such cooperative venture - they may even already HAVE such a thing
under way, and I've just never heard about it. I'd sure like to know.

I have a suspicion that someone in the crowd (like Peter Rauch) is about to
holler "But what about Zbig and other models of decentralized data
sharing?" - to which I'd respond as follows: if I am, say, some forest
service worker in Thailand, and what I'm doing is sitting and typing the
name of some spider off a visiting expert's ID label into my Excel
speadsheet on my office computer, how far away in the future is it before
I'll have some *free* software that links to Excel, recognizes that what
I'm typing in is a spider genus name, does a search of all the online
authority files until it gets a match, retrieves all the taxonomic
hierarchy & authority data, and feeds it seamlessly into the empty fields
in my Excel speadsheet, all *automatically*? Until we have THAT level of
sophistication and automation, available to anyone with a net connection
and a computer, I think we should just trade databases - the day when all
our respective databases can interact seamlessly via online search engines
is, I suspect, still far enough away that there's no profit in waiting. If
we've got databases NOW, we should start trading NOW, even if our databases
are incomplete.

I suppose that since I'm the one spouting off, I should make some effort to
start the proverbial ball rolling, but one of the things that might be most
useful is something I'm not equipped to do properly: start a new mailing
list, so those of us interested in this can discuss it as a group without
bothering everyone else. That aside, I can at least offer my own database
efforts as available for trade; I presently have a listing in FileMaker Pro
of all the extant insect families (including many of the synonyms and
alternative names), and nearly 5000 insect genera, including virtually all
of the Apoidea/Sphecoidea, Mantodea, and New World Cerambycidae (plus the
entire generic list of North American representatives of various families).
If anyone has similar databases they're willing to swap, or ideas for
starting a mailing list (or website, or even - hope of all hopes - an
actual Napster-like online linked community), contact me and we can discuss
details. I may be opening a can of worms, but it beats wallowing in
despair. Besides, if I have to wade through 4 hours of e-mail to get my
hands on a database that will save me 40 hours of typing, then I'm coming
out ahead. Doesn't the concept of a "win-win scenario" ever cross people's
minds anymore? Man, I sure hope so.

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://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82