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Resource Identification for a
Biological Collection Information Service in Europe Results of the Concerted Action Project |
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Resource Identification for a
Biological Collection Information Service in Europe Results of the Concerted Action Project |
[Contents] [BioCISE Home | The Survey | Collection catalogue | Software | Standards and Models]
Linda Olsvig-Whittaker
Pp. 50 in: Berendsohn, W. G. (ed.), Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe (BioCISE). - Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Dept. of Biodiversity Informatics.
The importance of the Israeli collections. The region now called Israel has been an area of interest for travellers and naturalists ever since the Middle Ages. Apart from its historical and cultural importance, Israel is geographically unique: the meeting point of three continents, representing the eastern arid extreme of the Mediterranean and its transition into the great central Asian steppes and deserts. Its flora and fauna are remarkably rich, with contributions from five biogeographic regions. Many species (wild wheat, barley, oats, legumes, etc.) are important as progenitors of domestic crops. The influx of many scientists among both visitors and Jewish immigrants since the mid-19th century provided a substantial foundation of information about the biota of the region. Today the biological collections of Israel are centralized, well organized, and often digitised, thus providing an easily accessible source of information on biota of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The BioCISE workshop in Israel: bringing together sub-disciplines. On 30 August 1988, the first public workshop in the BioCISE project was held at the Israel Academy of Sciences, attended by about 30 people invited from both users and producers of biological collection and survey databases in Israel. Brief presentations were made for the major databases in Israel, followed by discussion of the needs of database users. Until then, there had been only limited communication among users and producers of data, so the discussions were both lively and educational. We learned that users were most interested in electronically available primary data. In the absence of easily accessible data, the users were prone to substitute "expert opinion".
The role of a future BioCISE from the Israeli viewpoint. Israel has a relatively computer-literate and sophisticated scientific community with professional interests and connections throughout the world, especially in the EU and North America. There is strong interest in networking of the type represented by BioCISE, and the capability to use it well if available. Environmental professionals need the ability to compare Israeli data to similar information in the region; plant breeders are concerned with the distribution of genetic resources, and taxonomists have the obvious need to know the distribution of study taxa and their relatives. As Israel continues to develop into a world leader in high tech and the information sciences, these needs are likely to grow even more acute.
Prospects for national organization of Israeli collections. The BioCISE workshop provided the stimulus for the main developers of biological databases to meet and discuss the possibilities for affiliation. One database group, that of Hebrew University, clearly provided the most sophisticated and interesting paradigm for connecting biological databases in Israel into a single functional network. The workshop revived a moribund agreement to join the major biological databases into a single-access national biological database. Since Israel is a party to the Biodiversity Convention, that would be under the umbrella of Israeli Clearinghouse Mechanism (CHM).
© BioCISE Secretariat. Email: biocise@, FAX: +49 (30) 841729-55
Address: Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Freie
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