International Union of Biological Sciences

Taxonomic Databases Working Group

Welcome and Introduction
Stephen Jury (Chairman) welcomed everyone to Reading and hoped that it would be a productive meeting. He said that he knew everyone was very busy but felt that TDWG would be a more effective organisation if there was more activity between meetings.

He asked John McNeill to be nominating officer for candidates for Executive posts. As Stephen was now at the end of his three-year period, a new chairman would be required. Francisco Pando (secretary) said that he would be willing to carry on for one more year, but suggested that an associate secretary be appointed to help him, and ultimately take over from him.

Keynote speech.
Global Taxonomic Systems - how do the various initiatives fit together?
Prof. Frank A. Bisby (Univ. of Reading)

He started by saying that it was a very important time for TDWG and standards, as many of the initiatives were finally realising the basic need for the kind of systems we had all been working on, and that some funding may be available. The challenge for TDWG was now to be represented in all disciplines of biodiversity and if TDWG was to grow and develop its influence, then funding to provide a full time secretariat was necessary. He thought that there might be two areas of possible funding - from the European Union's BIOCISE project, and from the GBIF initiative. He went on to briefly explain these initiatives and others including the Clearing House mechanism, DIVERSITAS, SBSTTA, GTI. He then moved on to projects such as Species 2000, LITCHI, ITIS and the Tree of Life.

Officer Reports and Current Developments

Secretary's report and Treasurer's report were presented.

Many of the subgroups had not been active over the past year. Walter Berendsohn commented on the lack of response he had from his activities in several subgroups - he had mounted material on the web and had asked for comments (http://www.bgbm.fu-berlin.de/TDWG/acc/default.htm), but had received very little feedback. He felt there was a tiredness within the community, since many people had been working in this area for many years, without much support. However, he felt it important that the biological community should be ready to act now that there was political interest.

Stan Blum said that TDWG should not necessarily try to "invent" standards, but should look to other areas for expertise for existing standards - he specifically mentioned ZBIG - the Z39.50 Biological Implementors Group. He said this project had been selected as a good demonstration for Internet2. Charles Hussey (NHM) mentioned Dublin Core, as a emerging standard for metadata. Others mentioned other "standards" such as CORBA. Frank asked if it would be possible that at the end of the day, someone in the know could give a quick tutorial on all these different technical standards as he for one would like to understand what they were all set up to achieve. [This did indeed happen - Noel Cross, with contributions from Stan Blum and others.]

Keynote speech
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
Dr. Eimear Nic Lughadha & Dr. Sally Hinchcliffe (Kew)

Eimear described the Plant Name Project. It is promoted by a consortium formed by The Australia National Herbarium, Harvard University and Kew Botanic gardens, which contribute 3 nomenclatural indices: Australian Plant Names Index, Gray Index and Index Kewensis. The aim of the project was to produce a reliable reference file that would hopefully be accepted by the community. See http://pnp.huh.harvard.edu/ for more details. Sally Hinchcliffe, gave some technical details. The code is written in Java, and the source code is available on the web site. She pointed out some of the current problems (variable data quality, duplication of efforts, editorial bottleneck, little feedback) and gave an overview of the approach taken (pilot project --authors of plant names--, distributed databases with a peer to peer replication mechanisms, variable levels of accessibility, contributions immediately available). Sally said that it was not going to be free - updates etc had to be made. However, it was mentioned that the whole project --data and software-- is envisaged as a "Community Effort" and it should be set up so that individual users did not need to pay (presumably grants etc given to Kew etc would be used to maintain the service).

After the presentation, Frank Bisby asked Georgina MacKenzie (BIOSIS) how IPNI could fit in with BIOSIS's Triton project - she said that obviously there were similarities (in aim particularly), but that currently the two systems covered very different organism groups. Eimear said that she had met Michael Dadd (BIOSIS) at the Taxonomic Authority File Workshop in Washington D.C. in June, and that there are ongoing discussions between BIOSIS and Kew.

Standards for zoological databases
Frank started the discussion by saying that if the scope of TDWG was to expand to include all organisms, then existing standards based on plant databases needed to be extended, and there would be other requirements. He asked if there was a need for list of animal author abbreviations - botanists found author abbreviations very useful. There was a general feeling that zoologists did not abbreviate as much, but that some were used. Frank also said that the standard he had published for plant names needed to be updated to apply to all organisms.

Another area where a need for a standard was perceived was "Acronyms for zoological institutes and collections". It was advised that a list of unique codes within each discipline should be produced. This clearly requires to be tackled by a subgroup.

Some discussion occurred on abbreviation of journal titles. Some are using by indexing organisations (BIOSIS, ISI, etc...) and Gregor Hagedorn (Berlin) proposed to ask them to make available their "standards" in electronic format.

Other proposals for zoological standards and possible subgroups were: Ecosystems (but not just zoology); Uses of areas by animals (nesting ground, winter quarters...); Biotopes (several initiatives already); Collecting systems.

Versioning of online authority files and standards
Walter Berendsohn gave a summary of the problems he saw with updating and versioning of online authority files and standards. A subgroup was set up to discuss these topics during breaks, and make proposals during the plenary session later in the day.

Geography Standard
Dick Brummitt reported that the 2nd Edition of the Geography Standard would not be published this year. Some of the changes incorporated had been accepted at the 1996 Toronto meeting, and more were accepted at the 1997 Taiwan meeting. It was likely to be published on a web site before the paper edition was released.

DELTA
Gregor Hagedorn reported that the new features proposed for Delta II would mean that new files could be incompatible with old formats, but in very subtle ways, and they would require a fundamental rewrite of import code. He pointed out that a major drawback with Delta II is that it is not mappable onto a relational model. He made it clear that Delta II is something quite different from the previous Delta and needs to be submitted for endorsement as a new standard. Delta version 3.x is the one endorsed, and the subsequent version 4.x can be automatically endorsed, since the changes are minor and it is compatible with previous versions. He recommended that TDWG did not adopt DELTA II. Richard Pankhurst and Walter Berendsohn, among others, agreed. A subgroup to work on Structure of Descriptive Data was proposed by Gregor Hagedorn, who volunteered to convene it.

TL-2
Richard Pankhurst reported on the TL-2 database, a joint project between IAPT and USDA, from which a TL-2 abbreviation database is being produced and will be freely available.

Descriptors
Richard Pankhurst summarised the position with the Descriptors Subgroup, saying that he had proposed many descriptors at the Toronto meeting but they had been rejected in favour of very few. However, many people had problems with that, so he would like to reopen the debate. There is a multiplication of "standards" - DELTA, LUCID, CABIKEY, and these people need to be involved in the discussion.

Economic Botany
Frances Cook (Kew) acknowledged the input received from users of the Economic Botany standard. She also announced her intention to convene a subgroup to prepare a 2nd version of this standard.

Keynote speech.
Towards an Online Atlas of Marine Benthos.
Prof. Frederick Grassle & Karen Stocks (Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, NJ, USA)

They started the project with a census of fishes. Currently they do not feel they are able to split up the oceans into areas - they use latitude and longitude, and were lucky in that almost all the data they use have this information (see http://marine.rutgers.edu/OBIS ).

In a discussion following the talk, others felt that it was necessary to split areas up because longitude and latitude details were often not available (and didn't mean too much to the average person). There was talk of extending the Geography standard. Charles Hussey (NHM) mentioned the Zoological Record scheme, and that the NHM had adapted it for their own use.

Subgroup sessions
Two sessions took place simultaneously before the plenary business session: a Zoology subgroup, and the Names subgroup .

In the Names subgroup, Frank Bisby explained that the Plant Names standard needed updating, and he hoped that it could be made more general to cover all organism names. He briefly summarised the existing document and asked for suggestions on how to go about creating a group of people who would represent all organisms. Several names were suggested, and Frank said that he would attempt to coordinate further work, with the help of Sue Brandt.

Gail Kampmeier was elected convenor of the Zoology Subgroup, and reported that the group was not aware of many existing standards that affected the whole of zoology, but they would endeavour to find and list them. She also commented that the subgroup would like some influence on speakers at the next meeting, so that there was less emphasis on botany!

Plenary Session
As a result of the subgroup on standard versioning set up by Walter Berendsohn, a proposal for a modified by-law of the TDWG constitution was presented:

Replace by-law 1 paragraph 4 ("When an adopted ..") by the following paragraph:

"All new TDWG standards have to be published in electronic form. When an adopted standard does not exist in printed form, TDWG may undertake to have it printed. Publication of standards is the responsibility of the Standards Editor(s), who may co-opt other members of TDWG for assistance."

Insert a new by-law:

"(2) Updating standards

For the purpose of these by-laws, Data Value Standards are distinguished from Structural Standards. Data Value Standards provide actual terms or values that are directly used in databases, whereas Structural Standards provide information used in the design or documentation of databases.

Updates of Structural Standards must carry a version number to distinguish them from the original or earlier updates.

Data Value Standards may either be available in versioned editions, or they may be available from TDWG approved sources on-line in a continuously updated form.

(1.7) TDWG will automatically approve new numbered versions of existing Data Value Standards, where there has been no change to structure and to the philosophy or method of data gathering.

TDWG will revise the status of on-line, continuously updated Data Value Standards during each annual meeting. "

Re-number current by-law 2 to 3.

This amendment will be sent out to members for voting on.

There was a proposal to amend the constitution  Replace Article 8. Amendments, first sentence: This constitution may only be altered by a two-thirds majority of the membership voting by postal vote.

by the following:

This constitution may only be altered by a two-thirds majority of the membership. Voting may be by postal vote, facsimile, or electronic message.

in order to enable members' postal vote by e-mail. (subscribed by the executive).

There was a request from Vernon Heywood, on the behalf of the "Euro Mediterranean Floristic Initiative" to reopen a subgroup on Habitats (it was once convened by Michael Lock (Kew) but was wound up in 1995 due to lack of interest).

Next Meeting: the news from David Boufford, who had offered to host the next meeting in Harvard, was that it was likely to be late October or early November.

New Executive: John McNeill reported he had been canvassing the members, and proposed only one candidate for Chairman - Peter Stevens. And all other executive members were willing to be re-elected. He also suggested that two new members be co-opted on to the Executive to increase its expertise and variety: Stan Blum and Gail Kampmeier. The members accepted these recommendations.

Short communications, posters & demonstrations

1. IPNI (International Plant Names Index). E.N. Lughadha & al.
2. MANDALA: A database Weaving together Information on Specimens, Nomenclature, and Literature for Systematics Research: G.E. Kampmeier
3. Specimen Collection Management System at NYBG. K. Indoe & T. Kirchgessner
4. BioCise project. W. Berendsohn
5. DeltaAccess. G. Hagedorn
6. DELTA . I. Reid
7. KE EMU. I. Turnbull
8. Bioinformatics. N. Parker & al.
9. Cultivated Plant Checklist Database. H. Knuepffer

GMM 24/9/98 & FP 2/99