[Taxacom] Obscure web site

Fri Aug 17 10:57:03 CDT 2012

Yes, a good observation, that.

There are some programs that allow you to store your e-mails on your hard drive (and back them up them elsewhere), apart from Outlook. I use one that is called Mailstore (free, you can store up to three e-mail address contents and update whenever you want). You can call up individual e-mails and print them; it stores the attachments as well. It's a good idea, anyway, as e-mail servers can crash, virus may get in and e-mails often have legal implications - I prefer to have my correspondence with funding institutions, superiors, students, banks etc. stored in a place that cannot be easily corrupted or disappeared. But if that helps historians, quién sabe.

Regards,
Heike

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dra. Heike Vibrans Lindemann
Laboratorio de Etnobotánica
Postgrado en Botánica
Campus Montecillo
Colegio de Postgraduados en Ciencias Agrícolas
km 35.5 carr. México-Texcoco
56230 Montecillo
Estado de México, Mexico

Tel. +52 (595) 95 20 200 Ext. 1335
Fax. +52 (595) 95 20 247
Correo electrónico: heike at colpos.mx (trabajo), heike_texcoco at yahoo.com.mx

Páginas web:
http://www.malezasdemexico.net
http://www.colpos.mx/IRENAT/bot/HeikeVibransLindemann.htm
Blogs:
http://jehuite.blogspot.com
http://www.cuexcomate.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

--- El vie 17-ago-12, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org> escribió:

> De: Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
> Asunto: Re: [Taxacom] Obscure web site
> A: "John Grehan" <calabar.john at gmail.com>, "Dr Brian Taylor" <dr.brian.taylor at ntlworld.com>
> Cc: "taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, "Robert Kiger" <rkiger at andrew.cmu.edu>
> Fecha: viernes, 17 de agosto de 2012, 10:28
> Interesting thread here. Another
> problem with digital legacy is email.
> Will the history of science slam to a halt when it comes to
> 1990? This
> is when, I think, people stopped keeping carbon copies of
> their
> correspondence and putting snail mail of letters they got
> into manila
> folders. 
> 
> I've tried to keep copies of my correspondence but it is
> just too
> tedious to save an email as a text file with info on who it
> was sent to.
> 
> 
> If there were software that allowed one to archive an email
> (coming or
> going) by pressing an "Archive this" key or icon, this would
> be a boon
> to the history of science. Saving with xml formats might
> help data
> mining. I think this is an important thing, because just
> think . . .
> what historian is going to study correspondence between
> zoologists or
> botanists or any other scientist between 1990 and 2013?
> How?
> 
> The opportunity is there to create software to sell to
> institutions and
> individuals a way to archive their email. There are
> certainly
> institutions that will accept such archives, e.g. the Hunt
> Botanical
> Institute in Pittsburgh for botany.
> 
> ____________________________
> Richard H. Zander
> Missouri Botanical Garden, PO Box 299, St. Louis, MO
> 63166-0299 USA  
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
> and
> http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
> Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site:
> http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm
> UPS and FedExpr -  MBG, 4344 Shaw Blvd, St. Louis 63110
> USA
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu]
> On Behalf Of John Grehan
> Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 10:15 AM
> To: Dr Brian Taylor
> Cc: taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Obscure web site
> 
> Brain,
> 
> The web is definitely and blessing and a curse. The long
> term viability
> of
> the effort seems to remain unresolved, even the scratchpad
> option has
> only
> limited operative potential. In a way I see my website as a
> sort of book
> without going to the point of producing a book. A book may
> represent a
> 'final' product upon its completion but at least it remains
> accessible
> from
> that point on whereas a web site may be continuously
> evolving, but from
> the
> point that it is no longer supportable its content will
> effectively die
> and
> it's value, even if the content continues to be accessible
> in some
> archive,
> no longer has that currency that even a book may continue to
> generate.
> 
> They way I look at this is that as long as I am alive I may
> be able to
> cover the cost and at least I am in control of the situation
> and not
> subject to arbitrary institutional decisions (its certainly
> an irony
> that a
> supposedly science institution did not appear to value the
> science of
> the
> ant site). In my case I provided my web site information to
> a couple of
> other individuals with the instruction that they could
> continue,
> restructure, or disassemble the site as they see fit upon my
> future
> demise
> or loss of functionality. I have decided not to worry
> overmuch about the
> future of the site as I do not even really understand why I
> bother maintaining a site anyway. I suppose its is a
> compulsion of some
> sort to affect the present, but the real irony is that once
> we are no
> longer of this earth everything falls into the hands of
> those to come.
> 
> John Grehan
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 3:13 AM, Dr Brian Taylor <
> dr.brian.taylor at ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Dear John,
> >
> > Your news raises, perhaps, the apparently neglected
> question of legacy
> and
> > web sites. Whilst institutions devote resources,
> arguably inadequate,
> to
> > the
> > maintenance of libraries and so preserve the legacy of
> the printed
> word,
> > there seems little evidence that electronic media are
> regarded as
> worthy of
> > support let alone maintenance.
> >
> > At the beginning of this year and without any warning
> to me, the AMNH
> shut
> > down my website on the ants of Africa.  Originally
> fortunately, as an
> > earlier hosting group had closed due to retirement of
> the group leader
> and
> > transfer of the group to another institution, my site
> had been hosted
> by
> > the
> > AMNH under the umbrella of Antbase.org for several
> years.  Due to
> supposed
> > concern over copyright content the AMNH shut Antbase
> and so shut my
> > website.
> > No such concerns had been expressed over my site but an
> appeal to them
> to
> > keep the site open with supporting evidence as to its
> wide useage fell
> on
> > deaf ears.  Whilst I could do what you appear to
> have done and pay my
> > personal ISP a monthly fee for storage space that does
> not answer the
> > legacy
> > factor, if and when I become unable to keep a personal
> space open.
> >
> > With foresight I had requested the UK Web Archive to
> include my sites
> (one
> > on the Ants of Egypt remains unaffected) in its
> national archive.
> Thus the
> > pre-2012 contents remain preserved but I cannot update
> that content.
> >
> > The archived content can be accessed at
> >
> >
> http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20101217230047/http://antba
> se.o
> > rg/ants/africa/ for those who wonder at the merit of my
> concern.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Brian Taylor
> >
> >
> > On 09/08/2012 05:07, "John Grehan" <calabar.john at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > For those few that may be interested, my
> panbiogeography, human
> > evolution,
> > > and ghost moth web pages are now resurrected at
> http://johngrehan.net/
> > >
> > > Due to an unfortunate trend in the US (but not
> limited to,
> apparently) I
> > > lost my institutional resources and had to
> reestablish my web site
> on
> > these
> > > topics. To date the panbiogeographic and human
> evolution pages are
> still
> > > only cursory, but hopefully time will allow for
> their future
> expansion.
> > > Since few care about the content I wonder why I
> bother. Must have
> > something
> > > to do with my ego. Or something.
> > >
> > > John Grehan
> > > _______________________________________________
> > >
> > > Taxacom Mailing List
> > > Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > > http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> > >
> > > The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be
> searched with either
> of
> > these
> > > methods:
> > >
> > > (1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org
> > >
> > > (2) a Google search specified as:  site:
> > mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom
> > > your search terms here
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 
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> 
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with
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> 
> (1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org
> 
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> 
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> 
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> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with
> either of these methods:
> 
> (1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org
> 
> (2) a Google search specified as: 
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search
> terms here
>