Workshop for Biological Collection Information Providers

[Julian Humphries]

        Biological Collection Information Providers

Interested in learning more detail on how to publish your collection data
on the net?  We are planning a 2 and 1/2 day workshop to be held January
13-15 on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.  The
following topics will be covered:

     How to choose a hardware/software platform:
          Should you buy a UNIX server?  Can Mac's and PC's do the job?
     How to set up a Gopher server:
          Obtaining, modifying and compiling source code.  Installing and
          configuring Gopher servers.
     Picking a search engine for your data:
          Will WAIS do the job?  Flavors of WAIS servers as well as
          alternate search engines will be discussed.
     Setting up a World Wide Web server
          CERN vs NCSA vs NetSite
     Gopher/WWW maintenance
          Data management is one of the most under-appreciated tasks for
          information providers.
     Presentation issues for collections data
          What do people search for?  What is the best "look" for
          collections data?
     Security, usage logging and reporting
          Are your data safe?  Who is using your server?  How to tell NSF
          about server usage.
     Finding the right kind of technical assistance
          Finding UNIX wizards, HTML mavens and Gopher gurus

Participants will get hands on access to WWW and Gopher servers,
installation scripts, data management scripts, a quick Perl introduction,
log file analyzers, HTML editors, MUSEServer technology, point and click
inline maps and much more.

The following instructors will be participating:

Julian Humphries, The MUSE Project, Cornell University
Jim Beach, Museum Informatics Project, UC Berkeley
Leland Ellis, Keck Center for Genome Informatics, Texas A&M
Stephen Hsieh, University of Michigan

Other specialists will be invited to speak on specific topics.


Registration for the workshop is $275.  In addition, participants will be
responsible for their own travel, lodging and meal expenses.  The Museum
Informatics Project will administer the workshop and they will provide
all accepted applicants with housing and local transportation
information.  Reasonable housing within walking distance of the workshop
is available.

We will be specifically targeting biological collections and taxonomic
data and to that end encourage applicants only from those areas.  The
workshop is limited to 18 participants and we anticipate there will be
more applicants that available seats.  Assuming this is true, applicants
will be selected primarily on the basis of institutional support and
readiness to publish collections data as well as general computer
expertise of the applicant.

Please send an email application to Julian Humphries at:
jmh3 at cornell.edu  by December 7, 1994.

Include a one page (or less) description of your current database and
networking activities, your level of technical experience and the amount
and type of data you currently have ready to make accessible on the
Internet.  If you already have data on the Internet, include a URL or
address for that information.  Do not send your registration check at
this time.  Successful applicants will be notified by December 15.


Julian Humphries
The Vertebrate Collections and The MUSE Project, Cornell University
83 Brown Road, Building 3
Ithaca, NY  14850
Voice: 607-257-8143      Fax:   607-257-8109
Email: jmh3 at cornell.edu