CP "photo-herbarium" database

Rick Walker (walker@cutter.hpl.hp.com)
Thu, 04 Aug 1994 14:13:31 -0700

David,

Thanks for the Nature et Paysage catalog. I'll have it in the archives
in a few days or so.
---------------------

> Perhaps we could even store scans in the CP archive...
...
> Why NOT build a CP "photo-herbarium"?

I haven't announced it yet, but I have built a Mosaic browser based on
Jan's world CP list. This database browser allows a regular-expression
(keyword) search for Genus and specie. It has hooks in it for multiple
scanned images and text per entry. The long term "vision" is to produce
a CDROM once we have accumulated a reasonably comprehensive coverage of
species.

The problem is getting permission from HP management to put the database
on openly accessible network. I'm making some progress, and also looking
into other hosts for the database. My intent was to wait until it was
publically accessible before announcing it, but since there seems to be
some interest brewing, I'll describe it here.

I have gotten permission from Joe Mazrimas (A CPN editor) to scan any
images that we would like from past CPN issues. There could be an
on-going effort to systematically scan in all useful photos. I've
so far done only the first 2 or 3 color issues.

Today in the mail I have received a very nice cross-reference by Barry
that lists bibliographic data for CP photos in most of the available
reference books. A needed job is for a volunteer(s) to enter this info
into a suitable form for incorporation into the on-line database.

I would encourage submission of GIF of JPEG images of approximately
100kbytes/image or less to be mailed to me for inclusion into the CP
archives - and for later incorporation into the on-line database. I
estimate that we can have 2 or 3 photos of every taxa and still fit
within 1 Gbyte.

An office mate of mine has a similiar project going for Cacti and may
get a grant from the Int'l Cacti Society to buy a 1Gbyte disk for the
project. We could piggy-back on that for some time before space is a
problem. Using several hundred megabytes for storage is not a problem
at this time, even on the existing listserv system.

Any images should be accompanied by an information file with at
least:

1) Genus, specie, form (+ likely validity of the ID)
2) The photographer, copyright holder, & the person doing the scan.
3) The bibliographic source (if scanned from a publication)
4) Location data if known
5) A caption describing the photo

Eventually this info should be entered into a standard format so it can
be parsed by the database, but for now you can just send it with the
image. I'll create an index file, by species, so you will be able to
download specific pictures of interest from the archive server.

For mail transmission, you should uuencode all images before sending.

Scan away!

--
Rick