? Type information

[Peter Rauch]

Doug asked:

> >>Which locality label do you follow - the
> >>published one or the specimen label?  I am inclined to follow the
> >>specimen label, rather than the published label.
> >
> > But what if we
> >publish the correct data and no one at the collecting institution changes
> >the label? Or if we published it as is, and then someone later corrected
> >the error? I can imagine times where discrepancies can arise...and I can
> >imagine it could go either way.

How about "Publish both --what you thought was written on the label
(Larry Hribar pointed out the handwriting problem), _and_ your
interpretation (and that of the other author(s), in your specific
case) of that information." In other words, tell the whole story, as
best you know it, about what the label seems to say, what other authors
have interpreted them to be, and what you believe is the "truth".

You might argue that the cost of publication, or at least bulk, may go
up slightly (but how many of these "verbatim copy/interpretations"
situations can there by in one pub/revision?).

The other problem that remains is to make sure your publication record
indicates _which_ specimen(s) are these interpretations applying to.
For "types" you might think that wouldn't be a problem, since they
might have your label on them as well. But, maybe things aren't
that neat and simple....  It's a good place to have a unique specimen
label (barcode or whatever) to assure that the reference is relatively
unambiguous.

And, finally, as an aside --a good database design might allow
for verbatim label locality data entry (maybe even label images),
and will also provide "interpreted" locality fields. The issue goes
beyond publication, beyond changing(!) the label (or adding a label?).
Peter