Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência

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(online version)

Summary and lecture notes

Eduardo Dalcin, CNIP, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

Richard White, Biological Sciences, Southampton University

• alternatives: choose existing package or build new one (based on underlying dbms), using tools
• relate to stand-alone, client-server
• difference between generic commercial packages (e.g. MS Access) versus specialised biological database packages (BG-Base, BG Recorder, Lucid, Alice, etc.)
• more information: pointers to some existing systems, web sites with reviews, discussion lists, etc.

• Lecture topics
  • as a PowerPoint presentation (can be downloaded and viewed in a presentation program such as Microsoft PowerPoint, or viewed directly in some browsers such as recent versions of Internet Explorer, if you also have PowerPoint installed)
  • as a web page (generated by Microsoft PowerPoint, and therefore may not work well in some browsers)

Biodiversity database software

• Specimen and collection database systems
  • BG-BASE Botanical Garden Database
• Species and taxon database systems
  • Alice Biodiversity Data Management System

Lists and reviews of biological database software

• BIOSIS Software Reviews Archive
• Digital Taxonomy: An Information Resource on Biodiversity Data Management by Mauro J. Cavalcanti. Requires Java. If you cannot get the Contents pane to work, go directly from here to the databases section.
• Internet Directory for Botany: Software