I mention a few examples here as it may encourage others to think about
how similar databases or files they have compiled could be shared.
I maintain an EndNote bibliographic database about references related to
pollination biology, which I started a few decades ago. It now has over
13,000 entries, most with abstracts. I've archived a copy at the
Digital Repository at the University of Maryland
(http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/19192) for anyone to download. I
advertised this on a few pollination lists, and in the week or so since
then 1528 people have downloaded it. (I can also provide it in RIS
format).
Another database I've archived is an Access database of over 11,000
records collated from the literature about flies pollinating or at least
visiting flowers http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/19193, with an
accompanying EndNote database of the 499 references from which I derived
the observations. It's been downloaded 239 times in the week since I
archived it and advertised it.
A third example is a database with observations of flowering phenology
for 120 species in 30 permanent plots at the Rocky Mountain Biological
Laboratory (over 2 million flowers counted!), from an ongoing NSF-funded
project there that I started in 1973. It's at the Open Science
Framework, at https://osf.io/jt4n5 <https://osf.io/jt4n5/>thanks to the
efforts of postdoc Dr. Jane Ogilvie. We encourage you to think about how
you can make use of this resource (e.g., there are opportunities for
many papers about the phenology of those species).
Finally, almost 500 people have downloaded a translation I made of a
1948 paper in German about the courtship behavior of Broad-tailed
Hummingbirds. http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/10113
At a time when some information and databases are disappearing from
federally-funded Web sites in USA, maybe you too can help share some of
the science you're creating.
David Inouye
--
Dr. David W. Inouye
Professor Emeritus
Department of Biology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-4415
ino...@umd.edu
Principal Investigator
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory
PO Box 519
Crested Butte, CO 81224
