KANU announces E-mail access to Kansas Plant Database
 
The Kansas Plant Database, produced jointly by the
R. L. McGregor Herbarium and the Kansas Biological
Survey at the University of Kansas, contains 111,000
records of herbarium label data of vascular plants in
Kansas. Vouchers of these specimens are housed at the
R. L. McGregor Herbarium (KANU). The KPD will be
available for interactive access in the future, but in the
interim, queries may be directed via E-mail to
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Additional information about the database
(fields, table structure, etc.) can be
obtained by sending request for such information to
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Please include in your e-mail query the
following: Your e-mail address, your institutional
street address, a brief explanation of the use to
which the information obtained from the Kansas
Plant Database will be put, a statement that you
will properly attribute your data source in any
publication that might result from your work, and
your query.  The R. L. McGregor Herbarium and the
Kansas Biological Survey are committed to the ideal of
scientific openness as long as endangered species
or other sensitive taxa are in no way compromised.
 
During this initial stage of implementation, there
may be a 24-hour to several-day delay between the
submission of a query and the return of data
because we are conducting quality control on a
query-by-query basis as a check of our system.
 
The Kansas Plant Database comprises seven linked
tables, maintained in a DOS environment using
Paradox for Windows (Borland) as the database
management system. Queries are performed using the
query-by-example features of Paradox. Examples of
regularly asked questions are: What is the
distribution of a particular taxon within Kansas?
How many taxa have been collected in a particular
Kansas county? Which taxa have been reported in
county A but not county B? What species were
collected by a given collector during a given
period? Etc.
 
Query replies will be returned as ASCII files via
E-mail to your specified address, or as Paradox for
Windows version 1.0 reports on disk, or as hard
copy. Data returns are free of charge, except in
the case of exceptionally large query results, in
which case there may be a small handling fee.
 
Meredith A. Lane                        Director, R.L.McGregor Herbarium
2045 Constant Ave.                      Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Botany
Campus West                             Editor, PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN
Lawrence  KS  66047-3729        913/864-4493 or -7364  FAX: -5298 or -5294
                        UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
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