data sharing

[Hugh Wilson]

On  7 Dec 98 at 12:17, Stan Blum <sblum at CALACADEMY.ORG> wrote:

> Alta-Vista and the other Web crawling-indexing have absolutely nothing to
> do with the argument.....

aside from demonstrating fast web access to a large mass of info and
great success in terms of simple utility.  While the need to 'cull'
from indexed returns will probably always be part of the game, the
trick - which needs more research - is to create, from traditional
databases, 'clean' text files for use as base indices.

> There are lots of "horses" in the race to distributed information
> retrieval, and at this point we would be wise to hedge our bets; i.e., keep
> experimenting with a variety of approaches.  In particular, we shouldn't
> dismiss what library and information science has to contribute to the
> solution.

The fittest, in terms of functionality, will survive IF research
funding is available for full exploration of options, both
'established' and new

>
> Full-text indexing has well known limitations....

and very conspicuous advantages, which include minimal processing
between query and return and the ability to work with text files that
can be generated by any user from any development system.

> >Development has not required imposition of standards or data
> >structures beyond creation of a simple data exchange format:
> >
> >http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/ftc/ftcffld4.htm
>
> Sorry, the FTC data exchange format is as much of a _standard_ as any other
> (e.g., HISPID <http://www.rbgsyd.gov.au/HISCOM/HISPID3/hispidright.html> or
> any of the TDWG standards).  The data provider, the system software, and
> the receiver ALL have to agree about a lot of stuff before a useful
> interchange of information can occur.  Which is exactly what you say here:
>
> > via consensus among those working to computerize their collections
>       ^^^^^^^^^
> You did in fact arrive at a consensus -- or standard -- through
> negotiations among the participants.
>

Yes, and creation of a *simple* foundation via interaction among
*those involved* with the enterprise represents, in my view, a
fundamental distinction

> Yes. Absolutely.  Dave has very effectively developed software that
> integrates the Z30.50 protocal into the PC environment.  Put simply, if you
> have Excel on your PC you can be a user.  If you use Access or some other
> ODBC compliant database (which is just about anything) and have a dedicated
> Internet connectionm you can be a data provider.  It's not that hard to do.

looking forward to a demo

> >Since this involves
> >machine-to-machine interactions that must be conducted across a
> >network that is becoming more congested every day, one wonders if
> >this potential solution - which certainly appears to be popular with
> >the U.S. Federal Government (NBII, ITIS, NSF, etc.) will function to
> >link data resources (biodiversity collections) that differ, in many
> >fundamental ways, from the established model (libraries).
>
> The bandwidth arguments are irrelevant.  People doing distributed searches
> for biological specimen data aren't going to have a serious impact on net
> traffic; certainly nothing like streaming video, which is the kind of
> capacity the telecommunications companies are planning for.

Am not worried about searches, evidently via local PC nodes, slowing
down the network.  My point was that the act of searching will be
*slow*, i.e., lots of lag between query and response.

> I am very optimistic about the suitability of Z39.50 to our community, and
> I think we're going to see some impressive results very soon.
>
looking forward to being impressed, although it seems to me that the
process whereby various 'experts' establish standards and protocols
for adoption of the systematics community has been going on forever.

Hugh D. Wilson
Texas A&M University - Biology
h-wilson at tamu.edu (409-845-3354)
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/Wilson/homepage.html