Subject: Informal Pre-announcement: PA Lep Survey

From: [email-masked] (DTDerekson)
Date: 29 Apr 1996 21:31:48 -0400

A group of Pennsylvania Lepidopterists is organizing to consolidate
information available about lepidoptera, state-wide. The first meeting of
the group (at Powdermill Nature Reserve in Rector PA in March) drew over
thirty lepidopterists from across Pennsylvania. We are not affiliated with
any specific organization, but are a cooperative of interested individuals
who may or may not have other affiliations. Enthusiast or professional,
all who are interested in contributing to an organized effort to learn
more about Pennsylvania lepidoptera are welcome. Anyone interested in
learning more about the group may e-mail Jenny Lehman at
[email-masked].

One of our goals would be to establish a database system to capture,
organize and report existing specimen/observation-based data to support
state conservation efforts and to increase awareness of what is actually
out there. While a formal mission statement and goals are being developed,
I thought we might get a jump on the process by my asking ahead of time if
anyone out there knows of any robust products/home-grown packages used by
others (institutions, organizations, individuals). 

If you’d pass along names/addresses/e-mails of owners of any similar
databases out there, it would be much appreciated (please e-mail me,
Monica Miller, at [email-masked]). I’ve been gathering info about
efforts of which I’m aware, but I’m sure the folks on this board have a
much broader base of contacts than I do! We’ll be preparing a more formal
survey once we’ve got the mission/goals statement completed (and have
agreed upon a name!) Meanwhile, I’m hopeful that someone out there else
has a system we could clone or append to; rigorous data modeling and
developing of something robust on our own would lead to something that
would exactly meet our needs, but is also time-consuming and will take
away limited valuable resources from the data-gathering process. 

Thanks in advance for your kind attention and assistance!