[Taxacom] Showing the importance of natural history collections and the networks they are building

[David Campbell]

This has the advantage of making the collection reference a more integral
part of the text and thus likely to be better curated online by the
publisher.  Supplementary online material, supplemental journal numbers,
and items available from the author's website have an unfortunate tendency
to disappear, or perhaps even be promised and never actually appear.

It also may discourage the spurious citation of references known only
through citation in a database, giving a more accurate picture of where the
information came from.  In turn, if a reviewer or reader is familiar with
the database in question, this will give some idea of the reliability of
the data.  Do I know that this is a well-edited systematic effort to
capture all the relevant data, or a convenient platform containing whatever
data that whatever users have happened to contribute, or a collection
database entered by someone who had no clue what correct or incorrect
information would look like, or a metacompilation of anything that some
web-scanning program thinks is taxonomic information, or what?



On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Mary Barkworth <Mary.Barkworth at usu.edu>wrote:

> The other day I reviewed a paper that stated it drew information from lots
> of databases and networks but to find out which one had to go to the
> authors' web site and click on a pull-down list. That started me thinking
> of how to get more recognition for collections, databases, and networks.
> Suggestion: Collections, databases, and networks that contributed
> significantly to development of any paper, poster, pamphlet, report etc.
> should be cited in the references section (the old "Literature cited"
> section). We should do this ourselves, ask other authors to do so when
> reviewing papers, and promote the idea at meetings we go to in which people
> make use of collections data - whether of environmental consultants,
> politicians, or ecologists. Having collections and networks (and floras
> consulted too) listed in the reference section would mean that publishers
> will start marking them up and search engines may find them, all of which
> would, I suspect, make it easier to show how fundamental collections and
> networks are to today's research.  Below I have some suggested formats for
> networks that I use.
> 1.       SEINet Network. 2014+. Provider of records from over 60 US
> herbaria. Accessed via http://ngpherbaria.org<http://ngpherbaria.org/>,
> 23 April 2014.
> 2.       NGPHerbaria.org. 2014+. Portal to records from over 60 US
> herbaria. Accessed via http://ngpherbaria.org<http://ngpherbaria.org/>,
> 23 April 2014.
> 3.       Intermountainbiota.org. 2014+. For records to herbaria of Utah
> State University's campuses. Accessed via http<http://ngpherbaria.org/>://
> intermountainbiota.org<http://ngpherbaria.org/>, 23 April 2014.
> 4.       BHSC. 2014+. Records from the herbarium of Black Hills State
> University. Accessed via http://swbiodiversity.org/, 23 April 2014
> 5.       Intermountain Herbarium. 2014+. Records from the herbarium of
> Utah State University, Logan Campus. Accessed via https://www.idigbio.org/23 April 2014
> Logically, one could also ask to see herbaria from which one borrowed
> specimens listed in the References cited rather than (or in addition to)
> acknowledgments.
> I am a plant person. I would think that the same approach would serve
> other natural history collections and networks but perhaps not.
> Comments welcome.
> Mary
>
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-- 
Dr. David Campbell
Assistant Professor, Geology
Department of Natural Sciences
Box 7270
Gardner-Webb University
Boiling Springs NC 28017