[Taxacom] Digitizing Science Collections

[John Grehan]

All the problems and limitations outlined below and in other postings are
the very reason why seeing the original data labels is desirable - to be
then in a position to make a judgement.

John Grehan

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 1:45 PM, Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu> wrote:

> John Grehan wrote:
>
> >Such databases
> >that include distributional information based on specialist research can
> >also be very useful in biogeographic studies (so again quality of the
> >source in terms of specialist input is more the issue)
> >
> >Databases that allow one to see the original labels and specimen are, for
> >my purposes, potentially most useful.
>
> Unfortunately, original data labels are often extremely misleading,
> especially regarding distributional information. After georeferencing
> over 200,000 insect specimens from multiple institutions, the figures
> work out to over 20% of all original labels have significant
> omissions or ambiguities (the latter category being primarily things
> like abbreviations, uncertain reference points, uncertain date
> formats, or handwriting problems), and some 5% of all original labels
> have genuine errors of one sort or another (mostly typographical
> errors). I doubt such problems are unique to insect labels. A
> taxonomic specialist may be able to fix problems with taxon IDs, but
> that same person may be ill-equipped to fix problems with label data
> (or, even if so, may not have the required time to do this). Any
> digitized resources based on verbatim label data (without a quality
> control step to confirm each and every record and correct mistakes)
> will serve only to propagate such errors. Add to that the potential
> for additional errors introduced by data entry personnel, or careless
> georeferencing (i.e., use of automated georeferencing protocols,
> which have a staggering failure rate), and the locality and phenology
> data in most online resources is - simply put - not trustworthy.
>
> It is not very hard to capture specimen data, but it is excruciating
> and massively time-consuming to exercise any legitimate measure of
> quality control, whether it be taxon IDs or label data. My impression
> is that far more people are aware of (and take measures to address)
> the taxon ID issue than the label data issue. No one would dispute
> that a specimen record filed under the wrong species name is worse
> than worthless, but not many people seem to be similarly concerned
> about records that place a species in the wrong time or place - if
> only because they are unaware how commonly the label data are bad.
> That, I feel, is a grave oversight.
>
> Peace,
> --
>
> Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>
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