specimens examined lists, again

[Lynn Kimsey]

Somehow biologists always behave as if their problems, in this
case tracking specimens, lots of specimens or whatever, are
somehow unique. Has it ever occurred to any of you that industry
has not only managed but mastered how to track anything from
individual widgets to warehouses of stuff. As a result, if you look
outside the biological community you may be suprised to find that
these problems have already been solved in simple easy to
implement ways, usually with software and hardware available
off the shelf (so to speak).

The same could be said of any kind of database needs. It is sheer
arrogance to assume that somehow our problems are unqiue and
that only we can solve them. I might add that an enormous amount
of federal funds have been wasted because of this attitude.

Lynn S. Kimsey
Bohart Museum of Entomology
Department of Entomology
University of California
Davis, CA 95616 USA
lskimsey at ucdavis.edu