data sharing

[Michael]

At 10:07 AM 12/3/98 -0800, Peter Rauch wrote:
>
>"Value", as a criterion of a collection, should not derive from "public
>usage", but from the benefits accrued from that public usage. It doesn't
>matter how much the data are used (by the public or by science) if the
>data lead to bad policy, bad decisions, results based on fictitious
>data.
>
>Who are these "non-scientific" users --users who don't need to care
>about whether the data they used are real or fictitious? Should these
>users be the concern of (be serviced by) the museum collection manager?
>Should the museum collection manager design her information system to
>provide (some sort of) data to people who could care less whether the
>data are real or fictitious?

I am intrigued by Peter Rauch's question:  Who are the "non-scientific"
users who desire collection data on the web?  Which data do they desire,
and to what end will they use it?  Will these users lend their voice to the
support of collections after the investment is made to place this data
on-line, or will the users remain anonymous and the source uncredited?  I
belive that identifying users and the uses of data is desirable prior to
structuring a system for disseminating that data, and before deciding which
data to include (a specimen contains more data than the text on its label).

Michael Chamberland