[obol] Bird Record Archives, Digital Repositories & Lincoln Co. Records

[Range Bayer]

Hi,

    The recent discussion of the fate and the availability of Oregon bird
records is important.  As already noted, some early Oregon Birders
OnLine (OBOL) records are not currently available and may be lost. 
Rare bird reports submitted to the Oregon Bird Records Committee are
archived on the OFO web site (http://www.oregonbirds.org/obrc.html),
but most birds are not rare.

   The problem of how to save bird records is not new.  Gabrielson and
Jewett dealt with compiling and preserving paper copies of records in
preparing their 1940 "Birds of Oregon."

    The means and structure of archiving records can be debated.  But what
is certain is that if records are not saved, they are not saved.

    For Lincoln County, semimonthly records and arrival and departure
dates through 1992 were compiled by species and printed on paper in
1995.  One index of observation effort is the number of bird species
recorded per year--our best years were 1974-1992, when 200 to about
250 bird species were recorded each year (p. 407).  During 1968-1973,
about 130-190 species were recorded, and prior to that we only had
four years with at least 100 species (1934, 1941, 1949, 1950). 
Although crew members of Capt. James Cook reported "birds of the gull
kind" in March 1778 along what is now the Lincoln County coast, the
first record included is for 1849, when Lt. Talbot shot a Bald Eagle
at Alsea Bay (p. 411-412).

    To allow free access to these records and other articles published in
Journal of Oregon Ornithology (JOO), Lucy Biggs of Eugene first HTML
coded the files and put them on her OBOL web site in July 1995.  They
remained there until 1997, when I moved them to my web site.  They
continued to be accessible for free there until about March 19, when
they were added to OSU Libraries' free ScholarsArchive at OSU
(http://hdl.handle.net/1957/8070); at 149 pages, they are 2.6
Megabytes, so please be patient in viewing.  The latest issue of JOO
was published in 1996; hopefully, others will be published as time
permits.

     We are not immortal, and the time and energy available to work on
projects such as compiling bird records often becomes less as we age.
 Computer programs and storage devices (e.g., 8 inch floppy disks)
also become obsolete.  In solemn recognition of these realities, I
had been looking for a digital repository for Lincoln County records
through 1992 and the rest of the material in JOO
(http://hdl.handle.net/1957/7951), so that they would remain
accessible when I become unable to maintain my web site.  I found it
with ScholarsArchive at OSU.  Their digital repository is highly ranked
(http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2008/Feb08/scholarsarchive.html).

     I had been concerned about converting my computer files because they
were done with an obsolete word processing program (WordStar 4). 
However, current Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology has
made great advances, so ScholarsArchive was able to fairly quickly
scan and convert printed pages into computer searchable PDF files
that kept the original appearance.  Another advantage to
ScholarsArchive is that material is catalogued for searching
libraries (WorldCat) and also for Internet search engines such as
Google.  For example, Google "Brant Oregon" (without the quotation
marks) and two articles about Brant are at or near the top from
ScholarsArchive.

    Including material in digital repositories such as ScholarsArchive
will also allow the material to be accessible via other information
links.  For example, OSU Libraries' Oregon Explorer
(http://www.oregonexplorer.info/ and http://hdl.handle.net/1957/29)
and Oregon Wildlife Explorer
(http://www.oregonexplorer.info/Wildlife/) are information portals
that link to ScholarsArchive and other digital resources.  However,
Explorer and Wildlife Explorer are still being developed, so their
potential has yet to be realized.  As time goes on, digital material
can be expected to become more connected.

     Lincoln County records included in the bird field notes columns of
the Yaquina Birders & Naturalist newsletter since 1992 are also
available for free and searchable at my web site
(http://www.orednet.org/~rbayer/lincoln/bird.htm#recent).  These
records are not compiled, but they do give an idea of which unusual
birds were reported, first and last dates, as well as other
information since 1992.  I need to work on compiling and indexing
them so that they are available to use in a digital repository...

      If you have an Oregon natural history project for which you are
looking for a depository, consider contacting Janet Webster, who is
Project Leader for ScholarsArchive at OSU
(http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/dspace/).  To see other
collections in their Natural Resources Community, see
http://hdl.handle.net/1957/5

    Cheers,

Range Bayer, Newport, Oregon