Making data available to a broad audience is desirable and even required by funding sources supporting our research and collections. GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) plays no small part in leading this charge not only in assembling an electronic catalog of names, but with the debut of its new portal (http://data.gbif.org/), with information from over 220 data providers and nearly 1500 datasets that may be mined. While laudable, the steps to make these datasets available to GBIF are often beyond the scope of those without robust information technology support, making these datasets vulnerable to being lost as grants end, data and database stewards change priorities, retire, or leave the field. However, one way to capture and integrate these datasets is through Discover Life (http://www.discoverlife.org/), whose mission is “to assemble and share knowledge in order to improve education, health, agriculture, economic development, and conservation throughout the world”. With nearly 1.2 million species represented, its major strengths include mapping and on-line illustrated identification tools. Mapping of taxa, specimens, and collections is in collaboration with TopoZone.com. As with GBIF, Discover Life (DL) does not take ownership of data provided to it, but attributes it back to its source either by drilling back to a provider’s database or denoting its ownership throughout the display process.

Our data on the fly family, Therevidae, is an example of a mature database (http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/research/mandala/TherevidWebMandala.html) that has been working its way towards being served to GBIF, but was able to be mapped and represented with DL beginning in 2003. Discover Life accesses exported text files of over 1,300 valid (accepted) taxonomic names (http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Therevidae) and nearly 123,000 georeferenced specimens, which it updates daily. Users choose a taxon and where specimens exist, scalable distribution maps are automatically generated, with clickable data points, allowing users to see details about individual specimens. The real power of the system is in the customizable mapping (http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20m?act=make_map). Users can map one or more taxa from multiple data sources or entire datasets, restrict or expand mapping by data source(s) or points, center maps by clicking or using fixed latitude/longitude or UTM coordinates, and make maps for display or publications in color or black & white. Satellite, topographic, and for some areas of the globe, photo maps allow visualization of the landscape.

Currently, as has happened with many initiatives, development of GBIF and DL has been taking place largely in parallel, often targeting slightly different audiences, with somewhat different goals. One of the strengths of GBIF is its commitment to the history of taxonomic names and its adoption of TDWG standards. A major weakness is the difficulty, real or perceived, for many users to get their data to GBIF. Discover Life can quickly map specimens of one or more taxa, drawn from a single or multiple data sources. Datasets do not need to be independently available on the internet: database owners may provide DL with a delimited text file with basic standards-compliant output. For both data providers and the intended audience and/or user groups, it is time to recognize strengths of various systems and endeavor to work together towards a collaboration that benefits all.