[Nhcoll-l] Uploading collection catalogs online

[Carla Cicero]

Hi Mireia - Philosophy aside...

Arctos (which is multi-institutional and web-based) does allow curators to
'encumber' different kinds of data (mostly entire record, collector,
coordinates, year), and we track who encumbered the date, when it was
encumbered, the encumberance type, reason for encumberance, and an
expiration. This is a case by case basis and the reasons vary among
curators and collections. However, of the ~1.8M records currently in
Arctos, <0.1% are encumbered. With regard to data cleaning, we try hard in
Arctos to set high standards for data quality through the use of
authorities and controlled vocabularies. Errors of course do happen,
though.

VertNet will take whatever data are not encumbered from a collection and
publish those. If the data are encumbered, they will not be  published in
VertNet. VertNet has developed a set of data cleaning tools that are used
to clean (i.e., standardize) data before publishing to facilitate searching
on VertNet using Darwin Core standard. These 'migrators' apply only if the
collection resource is hosted on the VertNet instance of Integrated
Publishing Toolkit where we are in a position to help with the migration
and publication process. If collections or institutions host their own IPT,
they don't take advantage of the migrators currently. However, we are
hoping to get funds to automate those migrators so that anyone can use them
to help assess data quality for their collections.

Best,
Carla






On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Ellen Paul <ellen.paul at verizon.net> wrote:

> And by the way, this is NOT hypothetical. When birders discover
> something interesting and word goes out on the listserves, hundreds or
> thousands of people will get in the car or on the plane...happens all
> the time. A Kelp Gull (very common in its South American range) showed
> up here in Maryland a few years back. People came from all over the
> country to see it, and locals took to feeding it to keep it around the
> dock. That White-throated Needletail that showed up in the Outer
> Hebrides (only to get nailed by a wind turbine) - remember - Outer
> Hebrides - not exactly around the corner - drew hundreds of people
> between the time it showed up and the time it flew into the turbine.
> Here in the U.S., people ran from all over the eastern seaboard to see a
> Green Mango that showed up in North Carolina and I'll bet that right
> now, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge has a line of cars from
> the parking lot to the highway, filled with birders wanting to see that
> Rufous-necked Woodrail (sorry - have to book my flight now...).
>
> Now, if the birders discovered it, they are entitled to share the info
> if they like. My point is that when the info is made available, people
> do use it. And birders are smart, tech-savvy people. If you think that
> they won't find and use your databases, you are being naive.
>
> Ellen
>
> Ellen Paul
> Executive Director
> The Ornithological Council
> Email: ellen.paul at verizon.net
> "Providing Scientific Information about Birds"
> http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET"
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>



-- 
Carla Cicero, Ph.D
Staff Curator of Birds
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
3101 Valley Life Sciences Building
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3160
TEL: (510) 642-7868
FAX: (510) 643-8238

http://mvz.berkeley.edu/
http://carlacic.googlepages.com/home
http://ornisnet.org/
http://vertnet.org/ <http://ornisnet.org/>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_collections
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