Dear Paulo,
Andy Bentley at Kansas was kind enough to bring the NatSCA database and website to my attention. There is a lot of similarity between this website and the Global Registry of Biological Repositories<http://www.grbio.org/> (GRBio) that was formed by the merger of Index Herbariorum, BCI and biorepositories.org. There are probably about 500 biorepositories in the UK that are already registered in GRBio.
Would you be willing to consider the following arrangement? We would gladly provide you with periodic downloads of the UK records in GRBio, including their GPS coordinates for map display, if you would steer people to GRBio to enter their data. We also moderate the data that is entered to filter out bad data and spam. This would relieve you of the burden of entering data and would provide you with a global source of information.
I'd be happy to discuss this with you on the phone or a Skype call.
Thanks and regards,
David
Barcode of Wildlife Project now on Google+<https://plus.google.com/107778383819228315340/posts>
David E. Schindel, Executive Secretary
Consortium for the Barcode of Life
202/633-0812; fax 202/633-2938; portable 202/557-1149
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
CBOL WEBSITE: http://www.barcoding.si.edu<http://www.barcoding.si.edu/>
Office and overnight delivery address:
National Museum of Natural History
Room 370
10th & Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20560
Postal mailing address:
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
P.O. Box 37012, MRC-105
Washington, DC 20013-7012
From: Bentley, Andrew Charles [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 9:54 AM
To: Schindel, David
Subject: FW: Natural History Near You
Hi Dave
Hope you are well? Not sure if you have seen the below from NatSCA but it made me think of GRBio and how we could feed this kind of crowdsourcing idea into it in order to engage the community to fill the "holes" and provide additional information on collections that may not be included. I really like the interface and mapping capability as a mechanism for people to explore their area and look for those "holes" or missing collections and provide feedback.
All the best
Andy
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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA
Tel: (785) 864-3863
Fax: (785) 864-5335
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/&k=diZKtJPqj4jWksRIF4bjkw%3D%3D%0A&r=94xk%2BkvyzF5zfdS9tDhVEg%3D%3D%0A&m=mNEr4bJAi2YVAfrOuIHZo72LbN6uODeIhjGOu5XhCuQ%3D%0A&s=771d36ecc6fca014be202960b993a6a35a5d2f542bbe9a1d08f53ebd998107b4>
SPNHC President-Elect
http://www.spnhc.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://www.spnhc.org/&k=diZKtJPqj4jWksRIF4bjkw%3D%3D%0A&r=94xk%2BkvyzF5zfdS9tDhVEg%3D%3D%0A&m=mNEr4bJAi2YVAfrOuIHZo72LbN6uODeIhjGOu5XhCuQ%3D%0A&s=51acb6395eef1e719d7f4b5fa29a0630add5f0197ca547aa18f253c3c2ae1aac>
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From: The Natural Science Collections Association discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paolo Viscardi
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Natural History Near You
Hello all,
For a long time we've wanted to know where all the natural science collection in the UK and Ireland are held, to help researchers find specimens and to know where we might need to provide support to collections at risk.
Now we have a way of both showing where collections are held AND collecting better information about collections with our new Natural History Near You database.
You can see the map of collections here: http://natsca.org/uk-collections<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://natsca.org/uk-collections&k=diZKtJPqj4jWksRIF4bjkw%3D%3D%0A&r=94xk%2BkvyzF5zfdS9tDhVEg%3D%3D%0A&m=mNEr4bJAi2YVAfrOuIHZo72LbN6uODeIhjGOu5XhCuQ%3D%0A&s=1504f6e6820b6542e812bca25cb8ed2d03955370b2028f05722e3400eeae7c4c> where you can search for an organisation and find out details of their collections by clicking on the map marker.
If there is no entry for a collection you can use the form beneath the map to add information and you can even edit existing information about collections that do have an entry by clicking the "Edit" button at the bottom of the text box that pops up when you click the map marker.
Changes won't be instant as they will all be checked before being made live (to stop rapscallions and ne'er-do-wells making inappropriate entries), but we will aim to update the map with the new data on a regular basis - probably weekly, but maybe daily during the early stages of the project.
This is a soft launch at this stage, while we work out any bugs that haven't shown up during testing, but we will be sharing this more widely in the near future.
So please help us put natural sciences on the map and have a go at sharing what you know!
All the best,
Paolo
