standards across taxa

[Bryan Heidorn]

>Taxonomic authorities, collectors, authors...are there authority file that
>give correct spellings, published variations, activity dates (or
>birth/death dates), etc. for those people working with various taxa?  I
>think the botanists have this, although I do not know how complete it
>is...I have not heard of it for entomology...other taxa?

I don't know about entomology but I made a quick check with someone how
knows a
great deal about these things. There are broader, at least partial solutions.
For example the Library of Congress maintains an name authority file for all
authors in their collection. They keep tack of multiple forms, name changes,
and the like. They also have standards for transliteration and other name
variations to come up with canonical forms. "The Anglo-American Authority File
(AAAF) is intended to be a single list of name headings for the authors of
works entered in the catalogues of the British Library
and the Library of Congress."
(http://www.bl.uk/services/bsds/nbs/publications/srs2.html)
There are ISO naming standards as well. I would need to search a bit to find
them but perhaps someone else on the list will know off the top of their
heads.
IThese files will not have all your names of course but if you want to make
your own standard, that would be a good place to start.

P. Bryan Heidorn


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  P. Bryan Heidorn    Graduate School of Library and Information Science
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