data sharing

[Robin Panza]

I would like to comment on 2 items in Mr. Wilson's recent posting:

>The telephone company publishes a phone book every year and this
>carries errors and omissions at the time of printing which increase
>as the year progresses.  However, most of the information present is

The difference between the phone book and our data is that government and
scientific policy are based on the information.  The consequences of someone
dialing a wrong number are generally trivial, albeit annoying to the recipient.
The consequences of hunting, development, and other policies on a tract of land
can be devastating to the plant and animal species involved.


>the information, warts and all, computerized and on-line as soon as

Some of us distinguish between computerized and on-line.  I whole-heartedly
support the computerization efforts past, present, and future, of natural
history collections.  Most of the curators I know would be only too happy to be
computerized, but are currently prevented by money and manpower, not fear of
the uses of the data.  Our own collection is computerized and I use it at
*least* once a week to provide data to researchers.  It is the putting of that
data on-line that has some of us concerned.

There are a *lot* of data available now that collections are getting
computerized.  It takes a minimal amount of work to obtain--writing letters to
appropriate institutions.  Granted, the data are not available at the touch of
a button, but we've come a long way already.

Robin Panza                             panzar at clpgh.org
Section of Birds, Carnegie MNH
Pittsburgh  PA  15213  USA