Deletion of KWP:Ento & creation of an error page to explain where the data went

[DerekSikes]

All the records in KWP:Ento (Kenelm W. Philip Lepidoptera Collection (KWP)) are either duplicates of good records, or good records of specimens that now belong to the Smithsonian (these 2 kinds of records can be easily distinguished, good records have parts with barcodes, the others don't). Therefore, the University of Alaska Museum no longer should be maintaining these 64k records in Arctos (and paying for them).

Some are vouchers of publications that list these lepidoptera species in Alaska. However, these are low-quality vouchers in that they were not cited directly in the publications but simply known to have been used for them (eg the maps in the Butterflies of Alaska field guide have dots based on specimens in the KWP collection). Nevertheless, someone might want to find the data.

The data will eventually be served by the Smithsonian and there are two other static copies: one broken out by drawer on https://kenphilipcollection.alaska.edu which predates the UAM/Smithsonian split (ie an older copy with all the data) and one (all records from FLAT, post split) in my possession.

~10% of the pinned specimens in KWP were moved into UAM permanently so anyone looking for those will want to know this too.

Request:

1. deletion of KWP:Ento and all its 64k records from Arctos
2. a redirect established for anyone trying to find them that delivers a page explaining where the data are (Smithsonian, etc.)

-Derek

[dustymc]

Adding this to AWG agenda for deeper consideration; https://arctos.database.museum/search.cfm?guid_prefix=KWP%3AEnto&CustomOidOper=BETWEEN&type_status=any claims this would involve breaking thirty two thousand, nine hundred, and thirty nine publication<---->material links, the contemplation of which just physically HURTS. (That's the ONE thing which only museums can do! It's why we exist! ACK!!)

I suppose there's no realistic expectation of the Smithsonian bringing in previous identifiers, which would provide some continuity?

(Maybe Arctos should provide a "how to write your will" page somewhere!? Along with murdering a sh**load of butterflies, KWP was a bit of a technology pioneer and I can't believe he'd be very happy with there this seems to be going.)

[DerekSikes]

Recall that in what I estimate are over 99% of those citations the specimen identifier was never mentioned in the publication. But it would be good to come up with a plan that in general could serve as a best-practice protocol because such large transfers of specimens & their data from institution to institution (and one database to another) will happen more often. I suspect the Smithsonian will retain the UAM barcodes we put on all the pins and probably also keep them in their version of the data. But, again, those specific identifiers were not cited directly in 99% (or all, I'm not sure) of any publications that used those specimens so the horror of having someone wanting to find exactly specimen X from publication Y isn't going to happen using identifiers anyhow (it would be more something like "this publication indicates that is the only specimen of that species from that region/ year and I need to see it") etc. One probably non-starter idea is to see if the smithsonian would like to join Arctos and start paying for and maintaining these KWP records. I guess it couldn't hurt to ask.

[dustymc]

AWG Issues meeting discussed - chill a bit, hope USNM does something not-horrid that results in some continuity. UAM will not be billed (and never has been).

[DerekSikes]

In my last email to them I gave them three options: 1) Keep the data onliine & ask for charity from Arctos 2) Keep the data online & pay Arctos for them 3) Remove the data. It's their choice since the data belong to them now.

…

-Derek

On Thu, Feb 2, 2023 at 12:02 PM dustymc ***@***.***> wrote: AWG Issues meeting discussed - chill a bit, hope USNM does something not-horrid that results in some continuity. UAM will not be billed (and never has been). — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5523 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACFNUM6ANLLKL3AXSM6BSMDWVQOGDANCNFSM6AAAAAAUEMZBNU> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

-- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *Derek S. Sikes*, Curator of Insects, Professor of Entomology University of Alaska Museum (UAM), University of Alaska Fairbanks 1962 Yukon Drive, Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960 ***@***.*** phone: 907-474-6278 he/him/his University of Alaska Museum <https://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/> - search 357,704 digitized arthropod records <http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological Network" at http://www.akentsoc.org/contact_us