Please help define data users/products

[Aleta Karstad]

The Eastern Ontario Biodiversity Museum is starting an all-taxon database
for the region of eastern Ontario.

We intend to include in this database data from EOBM specimens, other
pertinent taxonomic databases, local natural history observations,
orphaned data sets, specimens in other museums, etc.

Part of the proposal for this database includes itemizing who would use
the data, and for what purpose the information would be used.  If you can
help with this, please send us an e-mail.  Here is what we have thus far:

"The audience for the database would include:
 --Local field naturalists;
 --Researchers studying local flora and fauna, and those that will be
studying the area's biota in the future, including revisers of individual
taxa, students of ecology, life history & distribution of individual
species, community ecologists, atlassers, writers of environmental impact
statements;
 --Property owners interested in species inhabiting their area or land;
 --Teachers from K to 12 looking for supporting information about the
natural world around them;
 --Members of the general population of the region;
 --Students completing projects;
 --Municipalities involved in zoning legislation or town planning;
 --Independent consultants doing environmental assessments; and
 --Other database managers in the area, with related subjects."

The following is from the Atlantic Coastal Zone Web site as of July 1998:
"Conservation biologists, molecular geneticists, ecologists, functional
morphologists, law enforcement officials -- the list is very long of
those who are potential users of natural history collection information."

As for products that will be facilitated by the database:

"--field guides and identification keys;
--lists and accounts of the local biota;
--environmental impact statements;
--GIS mapping of all kinds;
--indicators of ecological health;
--mapping ecological communities;
--revisions, monographs, theses;
--an interactive Web site;
--magazine and periodical articles; and
--nature journals."

While this list is a start, we'd like it if you could help us add to the
list of potential users/products of this sort of database. It would be
extremely helpful if the proposed users/products could be accompanied by
supporting material  (i.e. anecdotal evidence, statistical analysis,
bibliographic information, etc.).  We are especially interested in the
findings of database managers of analogous systems elsewhere.

Thanks in advance.  Please respond to eobm at istar.ca.


Anita (Miles)
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