Announcement of the I3C (but where are the taxonomists?)

[Donat Agosti]

Why aren't we trying to hook us onto this bandwagon? I think we do have a
real strong case with our systematics to make to be included in any of such
a system! Why just be passive? Why not draft a little memo to get in touch
with them, explaining what we do, how we could complement their efforts. If
they are in drug recovery, a good systematics is, or will become a very
important tool for them, as well as easily accessible description of taxa,
synonymies, distribution patterns and models.

Why be shy - we all think, we are important - so confess and come out!

donat agosti
antbase.org




----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Zurcher <Eric.Zurcher at PI.CSIRO.AU>
To: <TDWG-SDD at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 5:45 AM
Subject: Announcement of the I3C (but where are the taxonomists?)


> >This newsgroup might not be quite the correct forum for the following,
but
> >as there has been no activity of late, I hope I will be forgiven.
>
> At the end of June, the formation of the Interoperable Informatics
> Infrastructure Consortium (I3C for short) was announced. So what is it?
The
> I3C's own material states "The I3C's mission is to facilitate and enable
> data exchange, data management, and knowledge management across the entire
> life science community by promoting common protocols that ensures
> interoperability in an open, consistent and robust manner." The "common
> protocols" are largely XML based. See http://i3c.open-bio.org/ for
details.
>
> Unfortunately, the "entire life science community" does not, at least at
> this stage, appear to include taxonomists. The emphasis is strongly on
> genomics, with a substantial side interest in drug discovery.
Nevertheless,
> this effort might be worth watching. It includes a number of heavyweights
> from the IT industry (IBM, Sun, Oracle), along with major players in
> pharmaceuticals and genomics, so there're a lot of resources to draw from.
> Whether their efforts might someday extend to include taxonomy, and
whether
> taxonomists can learn from this initiative, remains to be seen. But that
> mission statement does sound remarkably like that of TDWG...
>
>
>
> Eric Zurcher
> CSIRO Livestock Industries
> Canberra, ACT Australia
> E-mail:     >