THE INTERNET, COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY, AND COLLECTIONS

Moderator: Rusty Russell, Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
 

WHEN IS THE INFORMATION ENOUGH? WHEN IS IT NOT?

Rusty Russell, Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Before ARPANET and apple, if you wanted data associated with scientific objects stored at various museums and universities around the country, your options may have included Ato fly or to drive.@ Today, users of the information superhighway can get downright cranky if the data they desire is not available electronically. This level of expectation suggests how successfully we=ve embraced the digital era, but what does it portend of the future of the objects themselves? Are specimen conservation and specimen data projects competing for the same resources? Can we ever provide enough data to make the objects superfluous? This paper explored these questions more fully while providing numerous real-life examples of both happiness and heartache at the object-data nexus.
 
 
 

THE INTERNET, COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY, AND COLLECTIONS

Allison R. Brigham, Supervisory Biologist, USGS, Denver, CO
John Kingston, Biologist, USGS, Denver, CO

The USGS has had to expand its initial concept of collections being merely property management (a few old portraits and memorabilia at Headquarters; some rocks and cores maintained as Aworking@ collections by geologists) to encompass a realization that some of its programs produce biological specimens that must be archived and made available to the scientific community. It=s been a shock to some! We provide the national taxonomic QA/QC for the biological sampling programs (algae, benthic invertebrates, fish) within the Water Resources Division of the USGS. Although there is no complete diatom flora for North America, the web pages of algae (complete with digital images and other taxonomic information) that we have developed from our collections throughout the US function as continuously updated, working flora. This is presently available in-house and will soon be accessible publicly. Examples using our American fish data illustrate innovative, Auser-friendly@ methods of accessing taxonomic, site-specific and biogeographic data in text- and map-based, searchable, downloadable formats. These were developed to fulfill, in part, the responsibilities USGS has with regard to FOIA.

 
 
 
WWW TOOL FOR ANALYSIS OF MUSEUM COLLECTIONS BIODIVERSITY DATA

David R.B. Stockwell, University of California, San Diego, CA
Julian Humphries, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA

 This paper described a Web-based application called the Biodiversity Workshop. It allows researchers to perform a variety of functions using biodiversity data from museum collections. These include submitting their own latitude and longitude data from a web browser, conducting preliminary mapping and manipulation of that data, developing predictions of spatial distributions using that data, changing distributions with climate change, and visualizing the outputs using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), animation, and virtual reality. The Biodiversity Workshop integrates data access, analysis and visualization using the Common Gateway Interface and Perl scripts in a frame-based Web application.
 
 
 
USING THE INTERNET AS PART OF A MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BIOLOGY

Sandra Turner, Allison R. Brigham, and John C. Kingston, USGS National Water Quality
    Laboratory, Arvada, CO

We provide the national taxonomic quality assurance/quality control for a continental-scale biological sampling program (algae, benthic invertebrates, fish) within the Water Resources Division of the USGS. Although there is no diatom flora for North America, the web pages of algae (complete with digital images and other taxonomic information) that we have developed from our collections throughout the U.S. function as a continuously updated, working flora. This is presently available in-house and will soon be accessible publicly. Examples using our North American fish data illustrate innovative, Auser-friendly@ methods of accessing taxonomic, site-specific and biogeographic data in text- and map-based, searchable, downloadable formats. These were developed to fulfill, in part, the responsibilities USGS has with regard to freedom of information.