Re. XML gateways

[Tony Irwin]

No offence to Bob, but when I read his posting, I thought I'd indavertently
opened something from Brad McFall!
All the discussion about XML, etc. means little to this rapidly ageing
curator/taxonomist. I haven't got the expertise (or access to it) to be able
to manipulate databases, and if I took the time to learn, I wouldn't have
any time to do curation, taxonomy or survey work.
Producing simple text files of world checklists or classifications may not
be as sexy as on-line interrogational databases, but they'd be a hell of a
lot more useful to me. I'm not knocking the "let's look up a name"
species-finder sites (they can be real life-savers sometimes) but for most
of what I want, straight classified lists of families and species would be
fine. I don't think I'm alone in this - there are many small museums,
college departments or independant researchers who can't afford to buy
published checklists (which are inherently out-of-date) and who haven't got
state-of-the-art computers, fast internet access or software-support staff.
Finding the useful sites can be a real nightmare, though some like ETI's
http://www.eti.uva.nl/Links/frame_link.html are helpful. Even then I still
find myself spending hours typing in classifications from published sources
because they're simply not available on-line. Part of the reason for this is
that the archaic cataloguing software I'm obliged to use for the collections
is really more suited to fine art than natural history. Importing a
taxonomic database is simply not a realistic solution - the best I can do is
to use associated text files.
I'd love to offer what I've produced to others in the same position, but I
haven't got access to a page where I can post the files. If anyone is
interested in having a copy of what I've produced, then mail me and await
attachments. The files comprise straight text listings of most European
(some world) families of plants and animals in the format Phylum & Class &
Order & Family, with source references. (Not so much like Bob's candy -
rather more like lumpy porridge!)
Tony Irwin

Norfolk Museums Service
The Shirehall
Norwich
Norfolk NR1 3JQ
England
Tel: +44(0)1603 493642
Mobile: +44(0)7880707834
Fax: +44(0)1603 493623
E-mail: tony.irwin at btinternet.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert A. (Bob) Morris" <ram at CS.UMB.EDU>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 4:18 AM
Subject: XML gateways


> Here's some candy: we've built simple sample gateways to the USDA
> Plants site and the Simthsonian Mammal Species of the World
> site. Server-side perl makes up cgi requests to the site, parses
> the returned html and emits XML. Of course, it is a very unstable solution
since
> changes to the site's html will break it. But we did it because we
> experiment with federating heterogeneous XML biodiversity databases.
>
> You can nibble at
> http://www.cs.umb.edu/efg/xml/junwan/DEVELOP/gateway/gateway2.html
>
>
> Bob Morris
> Jun Wan
>