[Nhcoll-l] Uploading collection catalogs online

Doug Yanega dyanega at ucr.edu
Thu Jul 11 12:54:29 EDT 2013


On 7/11/13 9:01 AM, Mireia Beas-Moix wrote:
> I have a question for curators who have uploaded their specimen 
> records to an online database. Did you clean your data and hide 
> information for particular specimens, species or localities?  For 
> example, you may want to block access to the geographic coordinates 
> for the locality of an endangered species.
I've heard this idea (re: endangered taxa in databases) voiced 
repeatedly for at least 20 years now, and have found that in reality it 
rarely makes a difference; *most* such species have their distributions 
well-enough known and publicized that there is no new information being 
offered by putting the specimen records online. This includes the fact 
that a lot of specimen records of such taxa are old enough that the 
species no longer occurs where the specimen was found, meaning that not 
only does concealing the data serve no purpose, but it makes it harder 
for researchers using data to track changes in species distributions 
over time. I consider data concealment something that can only be 
decided on a record-by-record basis, with careful thinking about the 
consequences - any "blanket" policy stands to do more harm than good. If 
you're concerned enough, then spend some time googling your taxon of 
interest and SEE for yourself how much detail you can find online 
regarding the distribution - and only be concerned if the information in 
your database would be a significant addition to what is already easily 
available.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20130711/a06e4be1/attachment.html 


More information about the Nhcoll-l mailing list