[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