SERFIS On-Line

[Zhaoran Xu]

We posted SERFIS On-Line at Taxacom, and soon after that we posted
a second message for Changes in SERFIS On-Line.  But the second
message did not come through because we posted to Taxacom at harvarda
while it was moving to Taxacom at cmsa.  Some colleagues who did not
see the second message have had trouble to access SERFIS, therefore,
we here post the complete version of SERFIS On-Line.

Please pay attention to the second part of the message.  Also, we have
given many colleagues a password to access SERFIS On-Line, and we would
like to ask them "Please don't pass the password around."

We appologize to Whom the following message May Not Concern.


                SERFIS  On-Line

     SERFIS, SouthEast Regional Floristic Information
System, is back on-line in INTERNET.  SERFIS is a regional
multi-institutional database that intends to accomodate all
the southeastern herbarium collections, about 6.25 million
sheets in 112 herbaria.  Although still far away from the
ultimate goal, SERFIS now has accomodated 60,000 records of
collection data from 14 institutions, including ALU, AUA,
FLAS, FUGR, NCU, TENN, UNA, and USF, among which >50% are
UNA holding.  The collections are from different continents,
but >90% are U.S. collections.

     The on-line system is designed for curators that do not
have much computer experience, and users only need to press
either <Enter> or <Esc> key to select queries and to type in
the search constraints.  When it was tested (on Saturday,
October 1, 1994) in the recent Systematics Symposium at
Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, the SERFIS system
performance was satisfactory from remote login (Telnet), and
queries were executed instantly.

     To get into SERFIS at an Internet terminal:
        telnet serfis.by.ua.edu<Enter>
        (Wait for "login: " prompt, then)
        public<Enter> (Login as "public"; case sensitive!)
     (Follow instructions on screen to search data.  After
     searching, you may mail output files back to your
     own terminal by typing at the "serfis%" prompt:
        mail email-address < ~/output/filename<Enter>
     Email-address is your own email address, and filename
     is "ser + query#  + .txt".  For example, you have done a
     query "4-1. Search by Taxon Names only", output
     filename will be "ser4_1.txt")
        logout<Enter> (To leave SERFIS)

     SERFIS began on-line in a SQL database format in
April 1992 when Association of Southeast Biologists meeting
was held in Tuscaloosa.  But in the last two years,
Southeast curators had difficulties in using the SERFIS SQL
database.  Therefore, we removed the SQL database in April
1994, and re-engineered the system so that it can be
friendly enough for our curators.  The current on-line
system has tremendous improvement in both user-friendlyness
and system speed.

     Comments, suggestions and questions may be addressed to
the system manager at the following address.  Detail
documentation is available upon request.


   Zhaoran XU ("jau-rahn shue")
 * ------------------------------ * ----------------------------- *
   Dept of Biological Sciences        Email: zxu at serfis.by.ua.edu
   The University of Alabama          Phone: (205)-348-1790
   Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, U.S.A.       Fax:   (205)-348-1786
 * ------------------------------ * ----------------------------- *


L--------------------------------------------------------------------L


                  CHANGES in SERFIS on-line


        Some people suggested that free access to SERFIS (Southeast
Regional Floristic Information System) may create a problem to the
system because of computer scandals.  We agree that a system should
allow ONLY GOOD PEOPLE to get in.  Therefore, we have removed the
free access to SERFIS by imposing a password to the "public" account.

        The whole procedure to get into SERFIS is basically the same,
but anyone who wants to access SERFIS should email me to find out the
password before trying the procedure.  It is supposed that we give
out password to GOOD PEOPLE ONLY.

        We have received some good comments in the last week of free
access to SERFIS.  We thank colleagues' encouragements, as well as
valuable comments, including the one to cause the current change with
the SERFIS system.



   Zhaoran XU ("jau-rahn shue")
 * ------------------------------ * ----------------------------- *
   Dept of Biological Sciences        Email: zxu at serfis.by.ua.edu
   The University of Alabama          Phone: (205)-348-1790
   Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, U.S.A.       Fax:   (205)-348-1786
 * ------------------------------ * ----------------------------- *