October 30, 1999
Institute of Museum & Library Services
Office of Library Services
Program Officer, National Leadership Awards
1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Rm 802
Washington, DC 20506
This second interim report covering March 1999 through October 1999 is submitted in compliance with grant number LL-80016-98, "Linking Florida's Natural Heritage". This report is organized according to the five goals stated in the proposal, all of which relate to building the Natural Heritage digital library.
Alison Hamilton, a zoology graduate student at the University of Florida, (UF) completed the crosswalk between common names and scientific names on June 7, 1999. An Access database of this matrix was sent to FCLA for inclusion in the project. Organism groups covered included freshwater and saltwater mollusks and fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, butterflies and mammals. Plants were started, even though they were not part of the grant.
Authorities consulted in the construction of this crosswalk may be found at: http://susdl.fcla.edu/lfnh/authority.html
During the last six months the thesaurus team has acquired, installed and learned to use MultiTES Thesaurus Development Software. Nine Top -level subject categories were adapted from CERES and ENVOC thesauri.
Using these categories, we imported terms from the following existing thesauri:
Close variations, synonymies, and conflicting or variant BT/NT or RT relationships were retained for future review. A total of 2794 terms are now in the MultiTES thesaurus file, with 2586 postable terms; 208 non postable terms; 1696 top terms; and 1205 orphans. As we continue to 'harmonize' the relationships between the constituent thesauri and add new terms from our text analyses of Florida specific literature, we expect these figures to shift and change.
A part-time botany graduate student (with a $5000 mini-grant from the Center for Environmental Studies, Florida Atlantic University) was hired to develop the vegetation classification portion of the thesaurus. In consultation with botanists at Florida International University (FIU), University of Florida (UF), Department of Transportation (DOT) and FNIA, she is selecting candidate terms, identifying synonomies, and establishing preferred terms with 'UF' links to all synonyms. This effort is expected to be completed by January 2000.
Discussion continues with Gail Hodge, USGS/ BRD (Biological Resources Division) coordinator for the CERES Thesaurus to ensure coordination between the two biological vocabularies. At present, the CERES team is continuing to add terms to their thesaurus. They are also exploring how to interoperate their effort with the multilingual thesaurus of environmental terms produced by the European Environmental Agency. Consequently, the CERES thesaurus is evolving and does not offer a stable base for the Florida thesaurus at this time.
Text Selection
Digitization
Uploading
The Florida Environments Online database (FEOL) was established on the Web at webluis.fcla.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/fclwlv3/wlv3/DBwldbaz/DI106469414/DGgen/RP2/CM02/DGref/DBQC/P1basic
Record conversion for the following databases has occurred, as of October 4, 1999:
A PC software application to support the template that enables records to be entered by non-librarians has been completed by two FCLA staff computer programmers, Gerald Snyder and Gail Lewis. Design of the FEOL template including record structure and indexing was developed by Mary Ann O'Daniel, FCLA, in consultation with Stephanie Haas. Redesign was completed in May.
Additionally, Mary Ann O'Daniel, Elaine Henjum, Barbara Perkins, and Stephanie Haas have developed a Web input form for minimal record creation by any interested party. This Web form is functional and may be found at http://fc1n01e.fcla.edu/~bj/feolform.html. Instructions, with examples, have been drafted and are also included at this site. The form and instructions are best viewed using Internet Explorer.
FCLA staff, Mark Hinnebusch and Dotti Delfino, identified the relevant BlueAngel software components after several conferences with the technical staff of the vendor. Compatibility and suitability attributes of the product were agreed upon by FCLA staff and the vendor's staff. BlueAngel was ordered and received. In addition, FCLA hired a Senior Computer Programmer, Dr. Shuching Chung, to install and configure BlueAngel. However, the programmer was not hired until April 16, 1999 instead of October, 1998 as originally calculated in the budget. This was a 6.5 month delay. In order to compensate for this delay we need to: (1) extend the end date of the grant, or (2) provide additional in-house technical staff to do twenty-four months worth of work in eighteen months. We prefer the first alternative if possible. This is an issue that we will address in a forthcoming letter.
The programmer began work with the BlueAngel software and discovered that it does not support access to materials held remotely in a relational database and accessed via SQL even though the product documentation led us to believe this was possible. The programmer researched alternatives and selected, in consultation with Hinnebusch, a toolkit developed by Index Data in Denmark. Using this toolkit, the programmer is developing a working Z39.50 server that provides access to the relational tables held in the museums' computers via SQL and ODBC.
The programmer has added to the server the ability to access bibliographic records held in the FNH database under LUIS, also the Z39.50 server is now being enhanced to support large numbers of concurrent accessions efficiently. FCLA staff are investigating the use of different software products to provide an html gateway to the Z39.50 server.
In addition to the individual goal progress discussion above, other developments are worthy of mention.
Professor Martha Monroe hired Jeanette Randall, a graduate student in Forestry, to write the educational modules that are being prepared as part of the grant. To date, Jeanette has consulted with teachers concerning the development of usable curriculum guides. She has spoken with Regional Service Projects (RSPs), talked with teachers, and a principal. She has studied the Sunshine State Standards (SSS) and how students are scored on the "Florida Writes" portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Both the SSS and the FCAT drive how teachers teach and curriculum use. She is currently taking classes related to different teaching delivery systems, the ecosystems of Florida, and strategies involved in environmental education program development and evaluation. One unit on museum studies has been drafted, and six additional subject units are under consideration.
Discussion continues with the Biological Research Division of the U.S. G.S. on a new report format in their Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) that will contain taxonomic information formatted to the specifications of the MARC cataloging field 754. A message was sent to the Science Catalogers on AUTOCAT (the largest library catalogers' mailing list) on October 4, 1999 seeking feedback on the use of the 754 field.
Geospatial enhancements to records in the projects growing FEOL database including adding Florida Information Processing Standards (FIPS) county codes and hydrologic unit codes (HUCS) have also caused us to initiate dialogs with the Alexandria Digital Library (ADL), University of California, Santa Barbara. Currently, we are discussing how the FEOL records can be made compatible with the ADL project.
With the recognized need to have a state-wide discussion on the integration of electronic resources, project staff, most notably Stephanie Haas, organized a forum called "Finding Common Ground: the Challenge of Integrating Florida's Online Electronic Resources" that was held July 19-20, 1999. This one and a half day forum focused on the issues related to the integration of spatial metadata, GIS, on-line maps, specimen records, and bibliographic databases. Attended by representatives from each sector, this meeting appears to have generated interest in addressing authority issues, e.g., standardized authorities for indexing terms and geographic names, and to be leading toward cooperative projects. Several herbaria in the state are formulating plans to jointly submit an NSF grant to digitize records and permit cross-collection searching using a Z39.50 interface. This project is expected to interface with the current grant.
Sincerely,
James F. Corey
Principal Investigator