Casey,
I can go to the UMMZ libary at Ann Arbor, Michigan and get any issue of the
Ohio Cardinal, Indiana Audubon Quarterly, Meadowlark (Illinois), Passenger
Pigeon (Wisconsin), and many others. This hard copy will always be there
(and at many other libraries across the country). What happens if the
Cornell server crashes? Or the URL changes? Or the data gets hacked?
I'm not a luddite, but do understand the limitations of electronic data
storage, and do not worship it...
Allen T. Chartier
amazilia1(at)comcast.net
Inkster, Michigan, USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Casey Tucker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:46 AM
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]
______________________________________________________________________
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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