Maintaining databases

[Curtis Clark]

At 10:06 AM 12/1/95 -0600, Leonard Krishtalka wrote:
>          Here's a possible technological solution, which may be too
>expensive now to be worthwhile:  given that once an insect is pinned, the
>pin is virtually a permanent part of the voucher specimen, why not have the
>head of the pin encoded with a machine-readable number.  Pins could come
>pre-coded with numbers, institutional acronyms, continent, country, etc.
>That way an entire drawer of pinned insects could be machine read quite
>easily.  Janzen probably has somebody cooking on this right now.

I think we've come full circle.  A group of scholars discussing the number
of data that can dance on the head of a pin.

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Curtis Clark        http://www.sci.csupomona.edu/biology/clark/clark.htm
Biological Sciences Department                     Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona    FAX:   (909) 869-4396
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