Taxon Orientation or Tools

[christian thompson]

Martin, does remind us that from a general "tools" perspective many
facsimiles version are already online.

But that does bring up the question of whether we, Systematists, should
merely try to educate our colleagues and users about the diverse set of
tools already available on the web, such as France's Bibliotheque
Nationale's Gallica site.

OR should we be EXTRACTing the critical information about our group (taxon)
and build taxonomic oriented sites. So, for example, I would go to the
Gallica site (or probably just scan the Smithsonian copies) and get all the
Diptera description from Linnaeus, Fabricius, etc.

My opinion, for what it is worth, which isn't much because no one is paying
me for it, is that we need to build taxonomically oriented site to give our
users, one stop shopping for their information. So, that today when one
revises a taxon they would not only publish the traditional species
treatments (synonymies, descriptions, etc.), but would also scan the
original literature as appropriate (and legal).

On Legal, the most critical and difficult to obtain literature for the
average systematist is the OLD literature which is now without copy-right.
Unless, for example, some one does scan it and, thereafter, issues it as a
"new" work, etc. So, it is possible that one could not simply re-use some
one else's scan of an old work which was posted on the WWW.

Cheers

F. Christian Thompson
Systematic Entomology Lab., ARS, USDA
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D. C. 20560-0169
(202) 382-1800 voice
(202) 786-9422 FAX
cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov [NB: no terminal "n"]
visit our Diptera site at www.diptera.org


>>> Martin Spies <spies at ZI.BIOLOGIE.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE> 05/13 8:23 AM >>>
Dear all,

for scans of classic texts from the root body of all our trees
(of life, the universe, and everything)
- Linnaeus, Fabricius, etc. ! -
see:

http://eee.uci.edu/~papyri/bibliography/

Actually, I think I got this URL from TAXACOM
some months ago ...

Cheers

--
Martin Spies
Schraemelstr. 151
D-81247 Muenchen
Germany

Email: spies at zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de

Tel. (ZSM) +49 89 8107 153
Fax (ZSM) +49 89 8107 300