Stability of Electronic Media for Publication/Data Storage
Stuart G. Poss
sgposs at SEAHORSE.IMS.USM.EDU
Tue May 19 18:43:29 CDT 1998
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Hugh Wilson wrote:
> Seems to me that converson from paper to digital is going to happen
> as part of the natural course of technological progress, probably in
> ways that we don't appreciate at this point in time. ...
> Professional societies have served this function - to some
> extent - in the past, and they carry a 'tradition' that could be
> pre-adaptive in this regard. I don't see any other extant
> organizational structure that could function to establish and
> implement 'community-based' protocols for organizing and archiving
> systematic data that will placed in the digital arena.
> My experience in fishes is that few individuals or institutions presently turn over their data to
> scientific socieities and at present there is as yet little strictly electronic publication
> carried on at the societal level. Its mostly associated with institutions, specific grants and
> contracts, or the initiative of individual investigators. Societies, such as ASIH have begun to
> respond, but these archives are not yet widely used, incomplete, and do not extend to publications
> of the society. To my knowledge there are few examples with protocols for storage, checking data
> integrity, etc. Is this the rule or the exception in other taxonomic disciplines? If other
> socieites work like those in fishes, much of this work falls back to individual investigators who
> complete such tasks with very limited resources.
Are there good examples of societies that have established such data/information/publication banks
in taxonomy and systematics that are at all comprehensive enough and as yet widely enough used to be
truely up to the task? How far back do such societal archives go? Storage of digital data dates
from the late 1940's but I know of no archives that extend this far back. How complete are such
societal electronic archives? Do they have protocols, bylaws, funds in place, etc. to assure the
longterm integrity, completeness of such efforts?
> On 19 May 98 at 14:21, Stuart G. Poss <sgposs at SEAHORSE.IMS.USM.EDU>
> wrote:
>
> My own view is that we need a collective response, perhaps with
> societies..
>
> Hugh D. Wilson
> Texas A&M University - Biology
> h-wilson at tamu.edu (409-845-3354)
> http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~hugh/homepage.html
--
_____________________________________________________________________
Stuart G. Poss E-mail: sgposs at seahorse.ims.usm.edu
Senior Research Scientist & Curator Tel: (228)872-4238
Gulf Coast Research Laboratory FAX: (228)872-4204
P.O. Box 7000 703 East Beach Blvd.
Ocean Springs, MS 39566-7000
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Hugh Wilson wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>Seems to me that converson from paper to digital
is going to happen
<BR>as part of the natural course of technological progress, probably in
<BR>ways that we don't appreciate at this point in time. ...</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>Professional societies have served this function
- to some
<BR>extent - in the past, and they carry a 'tradition' that could be
<BR>pre-adaptive in this regard. I don't see any other extant
<BR>organizational structure that could function to establish and
<BR>implement 'community-based' protocols for organizing and archiving
<BR>systematic data that will placed in the digital arena.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>My experience in fishes is that few individuals or
institutions presently turn over their data to scientific socieities and
at present there is as yet little strictly electronic publication carried
on at the societal level. Its mostly associated with institutions,
specific grants and contracts, or the initiative of individual investigators.
Societies, such as ASIH have begun to respond, but these archives are not
yet widely used, incomplete, and do not extend to publications of the society.
To my knowledge there are few examples with protocols for storage, checking
data integrity, etc. Is this the rule or the exception in other taxonomic
disciplines? If other socieites work like those in fishes, much of
this work falls back to individual investigators who complete such tasks
with very limited resources.</BLOCKQUOTE>
Are there good examples of societies that have established such data/information/publication
banks in taxonomy and systematics that are at all comprehensive enough
and as yet widely enough used to be truely up to the task? How far
back do such societal archives go? Storage of digital data dates
from the late 1940's but I know of no archives that extend this far back.
How complete are such societal electronic archives? Do they have
protocols, bylaws, funds in place, etc. to assure the longterm integrity,
completeness of such efforts?
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>On 19 May 98 at 14:21, Stuart G. Poss <sgposs at SEAHORSE.IMS.USM.EDU>
<BR>wrote:
<P>My own view is that we need a collective response, perhaps with
<BR>societies..
<P>Hugh D. Wilson
<BR>Texas A&M University - Biology
<BR>h-wilson at tamu.edu (409-845-3354)
<BR><A HREF="http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~hugh/homepage.html">http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~hugh/homepage.html</A></BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE>--
_____________________________________________________________________
Stuart G. Poss E-mail: sgposs at seahorse.ims.usm.edu
Senior Research Scientist & Curator Tel: (228)872-4238
Gulf Coast Research Laboratory FAX: (228)872-4204
P.O. Box 7000 703 East Beach Blvd.
Ocean Springs, MS 39566-7000</PRE>
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