As an information scientists and not a "taxonomists" in the systematics use of the world, but certainly a taxonomists in the Library Science use of the word, e.g. Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) I think the work practice now is to describe higher level taxonomic concepts independent of the raw data the specimen. It is the description of a class of objects not the object themselves. Even at the species level the taxonomists is not claiming to have seen all of the individuals, just enough to make generalizations. So I think this generalization needs to be addressed by SDD. It would be icing on the cake if SDD could deal with the relationship to instance data as well.

Bryan

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TDWG-SDD@LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU =====

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I think in theory the SDD spec could be used to describe anything that can be broken into characteristics and states. That can certainly go beyond biology as DELTA did in some cases. I believe that, "Structure of Descriptive Data" handles that idea. It can be a description of anything. The description may itself be grounded in instance data from the world (specimens) that have been abstracted or summarized.

If the intent is to maintain it so generalized that it can be used in any context, including abiotic ones (in the same sense that DiGIR is specifically intended to be "Generic", not necessarily limited to biological datasets), then I agree -- stick with "SDD".

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The taxonomy component is needed to specify what it is that is being described. In the realm of biology it would seem to be worth some effort to be domain specific in this part to make sure we can capture this reference to a "taxonomic concept."

I guess that lies at the heart of my original question. I've been under the impression that descriptive data about, for example, certain characteristics of a leaf, are related to the tree from which the leaf fell, moreso than the abstract taxonomic concept in which some taxonomist might include that tree within. In that sense, I see "taxonomy" as a field that may very well be a (the?) primary consumer of such descriptive data, but not necessarily what the descriptive data is specifically endeavoring to describe.

I don't want to belabor this point, but I just would like to understand whether taxonomic concepts are considered by this group as the direct objects that are being described; or whether the descriptive data really apply to individual (or sets of individual) organisms, which may or may not be viewed within the context of a taxonomic concept.

Again, my apologies if this is drifting too far from the focus of this discussion.

Aloha, Rich

Richard L. Pyle Ichthyology, Bishop Museum 1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817 Ph: (808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252 email: deepreef@bishopmuseum.org http://www.bishopmuseum.org/bishop/HBS/pylerichard.html

-- -------------------------------------------------------------------- P. Bryan Heidorn Graduate School of Library and Information Science pheidorn@uiuc.edu University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (V)217/ 244-7792 501 East Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820-6212 (F)217/ 244-3302 http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~heidorn http://calendar.yahoo.com/pbheidorn