> Martha Jackson wrote:
>
> What is the general feeling of museum professionals regarding placing
> collections records on the Internet--should all records in your database
> be made available, whether they are accurate or not?  Or should you make
> available only those records that have been updated and are accurate,
> periodically uploading new & corrected records?

I think this is going to vary according to institution, purpose of
the database being online, and type of collection--what is critical
is that the viewer be told the level of confidence.  A database
designed to inform the public as to holdings they might want to see,
etc., might be considerably different from a database designed to
aid researchers.  Unproofed records are not necessarily harmful if
proper procedure is followed (see below) and may be useful in
alerting researchers that there is potentially useful material held
by the institution or that there may be a problem.

Proper procedure in much of the natural and cultural history area
does not include casually accepting listed data and basing research
on those data.  Considerable ill feelings and numerous errors have
been generated in the past when researchers have high-graded
catalogue information and published papers based on those unproofed
entries.  Public research databases are best utilized as informing
researchers where particular material is being held so that critical
specimens can be borrowed or the institution visited.  Another
valuable use may be as an aid in formulating hypotheses (e.g., the
ecological distribution of a taxon) which then can be tested by
normal means.

Cheers

Art Harris
--
Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum
University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX  79968-0915
phone (915)747-6985; fax (915)747-5808; [log in to unmask]
http://www.utep.edu/leb    http://nasa.utep.edu/chih/chihdes.htm
http://www.utep.edu/museum

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