[Herpnet] Important message for all HerpNET participants

[Carol Spencer]

To All HerpNET Participants:

Soon the georeferenced data that you furnished to the NSF-funded HerpNET
project beginning in 2002 will be repatriated to you. Carol Spencer and
Heather Constable will e-mail a final summary and instructions for
repatriation of these data.  Approximately 300,000 localities have been
georeferenced.  This monumental task was achieved thanks in large part to
you and your colleagues.  Although there are imperfections in the system and
the data are not yet as "clean" as we might like them, the collections data
of the herpetological community now are orders of magnitude richer and more
accessible than they ever have been before. For that, we thank each of you,
your host institutions, and the funding agencies, NSF and GBIF.

As most of you are aware, HerpNET is one of a series of distributed
collection database projects.  The others are FishNet, MaNIS (mammals), and
ORNIS (birds)—the only continuing project.  One hundred institutions around
the world are involved in these efforts; of these, 48 host more than one
database.  Thanks to NSF and GBIF we collectively have georeferenced nearly
1.5 million unique localities.     Where do we go from here?  Clearly, we
are not finished.  There are more specimens to be collected, and more data
to be processed and improved.  There are more collections to be integrated
into the database system.  Databases and database networks are not
self-sustaining.  They need to be maintained on a day-to-day basis.

VertNet has been created to carry on these needs, while providing economy of
scale for funding further developments. The leaders of the four networks and
museum community members met recently to establish the VertNet Steering
Committee (chaired by James Hanken, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard
University), which will explore the means of funding future technological
developments.

The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) has stepped
forward to help meet the immediate, critical, and emerging needs of VertNet
and the four vertebrate distributed database networks associated with it.
NBII has funded two positions: a programmer who provides support for
existing databases (Laura Russell, based at the University of Kansas in the
Biodiversity Research Center's Department of Informatics) and a project
coordinator to explore the needs of current providers and develop funding
opportunities for the combined resources of the four vertebrate distributed
database networks (Heather Constable, based at the Museum of Vertebrate
Zoology at UC–Berkeley).

 VertNet will serve as an umbrella organization to supplement and nurture
HerpNET and the other discipline-specific web portals, but it will not
replace them. Rather, we expect VertNet to provide continuity when NSF
support concludes. The integration that VertNet will eventually develop
should enable advancements such as an easier-to-use portal, new data
visualization, and dynamic analysis tools. The implementation of new
technologies will sustain the integrity of the networks and provide
opportunities for more communities to easily participate. In the future, you
will be hearing more about VertNet.  The Steering Committee seeks to develop
a strategic plan for sustaining and enhancing the established data
networks.

Thank you for your participation in the HerpNET project. We hope that we can
count on your collegial support for the broader vertebrate community
project, VertNet.

Sincerely,
Linda Trueb and David Wake
HerpNET Principal Investigators


-- 
Carol L. Spencer
Staff Curator of Herpetology & HerpNET Coordinator
atrox10 at gmail.com
atrox at berkeley.edu
NEW TEL: 510-643-5778 /FAX: 510-643-8238

http://www.herpnet.org
http://mvz.berkeley.edu/
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