To eliminate the possibility of the posts not being available in the future, I have saved all the posts pertaining to Columbus Parks in a database. Might be something others would want to do as well with the information.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio birds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Casey Tucker
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [Ohio-birds] How valuable are listserv postings?
Hi All,
Dave Slager and Bill Whan have both given good assessments of eBird and the various other sources of state bird information that are out there.
I recognize that eBird, like anything, has its limitations however one of the advantages is that it can be accessed by anyone looking for data, unlike bird listservs or state ornithological journals.
The old Ohio Bird listserv postings are no longer available (see link below), and therefore the only "historical" postings that can be read
are those available since the transition to the Miami University server in October of 2006, but who knows how long that will
last given that it's dependent upon having a birder on the faculty or
staff of Miami U. who is willing to sponsor the listserv. If something should happen to that faculty or staff
member then the listserv would no longer be eligible to be hosted there.
http://www.ohiobirds.org/publications/emaillist.php#archives
Additionally, archived issues of the Cardinal
have not been made available to the general public so they have limited value to only a
handful of individuals who have all of the issues in their collections. At least North American Birds, and many of the scientific journals are now available via the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (S.O.R.A.).
Likewise, eBird data is available through ORNIS which includes a number of different citizen science databases as well as museum specimen databases.
Again, these are all accessible by anyone looking for bird data from the past or present.
Once archived state ornithological journals are made more widely available then maybe they will have greater value. Additionally, if listserv information can be preserved for perpetuity and made useful through search filters, then maybe these will also be more valuable then they currently are for data mining purposes.
Listservs also present limitations as far as rarities go because some rarities are not necessarily reported to the listserv. For example, a Painted Bunting showed up somewhere north of Columbus last year and was not reported to the Ohio Birds Listserv, and only a handful of individuals were invited to see the bird. So, if you're someone looking at extralimital movements of Painted Buntings and an observation is not reported to the state listserv, and you don't have access to the state ornithological journal or it's not current, then how do you know that a Painted Bunting was documented in Ohio in 2009? In fact the only place that it was reported was to eBird.
So, from a users perspective it's nice to be able to have the greater access to information that eBird (as well as ORNIS & SORA) offers that isn't necessarily available through other resources.
Thanks and Good birding,
Casey Tucker
Columbus, Ohio
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______________________________________________________________________
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]
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