The collection of amphibians and reptiles at theTexas Memorial Museum, with more than 58,000 catalogued specimens, is one of the largest collections in the southwestern United States, and also has significant holdings from Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Although the first 51,000 records were computerized prior to 1990, these records were never verified against the original catalogs and field notes. Therefore, significant errors exist that diminish the usefulness of the computerized data. Access to collections is limited by the absence of a network to support Internet queries and cataloguing operations.
The two goals of this project are: 1) to establish a data network that will support collections operations and provide Internet access to collections information; and 2) to bring the quality of information to the same level for all specimen records through data verification and inventory of specimens.
The specific needs to be met by this project are to:
o Implement client-server version of cataloguing software to permit multiple users and remote cataloguing, and to make these data accessible via the Internet.
o Verify computerized data for the catalogued specimens against original data, and in doing so normalize Locality-Collection-Specimen relations.
o Inventory catalogued specimens by making new container labels.
