AIS: Checklists--Biting the Bullet

From: HIPSource@aol.com

In a message dated 6/12/99 9:39:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
hirundo@tricon.net writes:
  
 <<As they exist, the checklists provide almost as much information about the
 times in which they were compiled as they do about the irises registered. 
The massive 1939 (the entire iris world up until 1939) checklist >>

It is not generally known that there is a 1929 AIS Checklist as well, which 
followed several preliminary checklist published in the earliest AIS 
Bulletins. These Bulletins are available from HIPS. The 1939 Checklist 
subsumes the 1929, and offers some corrections, and it is now available in 
facsimile from AIS, thanks to HIPS, who lobbied vigorously, and finally, 
successfully, for it to be reprinted. 

<<attempted  to limit descriptions to a grid chart, so the iris description 
might be
 Y9M, which would be a yellow and a pink to red-toned bicolor to bitone. >>

One gets used to the grid. Simply stated, Y9M is just the code used for 
variegatas. 

<< I believe the real crying need, however, is for an online data base of all 
the checklists, right up to present registrations - a monumental task,>>

Idealist and altruist that I am, I used to think this might be a good idea, 
but I've come to the conclusion that AIS should continue to sell this 
information. Sell it on CD, certainly, for the computer world, and as books, 
always and ever as books, but sell it, not give it away. 

We of the internet community are accustomed to having access to all sorts of 
information online and there is a tendency to assume we are entitled to any 
info we want or need, or that any info that could be made available online 
should be, even upon demand. But the fact remains that AIS and other 
institutions or organizations sell that information--which information they 
own and which is under protection of copyright. They sell it to control what 
is done with it, and to raise a bit of much-needed operating money, although 
to judge by the very modest prices, not much. 

I simply do not think it is reasonable to expect an organization which runs 
on a shoestring to make all its intellectual property assets available free 
to anyone who wants them on the web. Nor do I think we should expect these 
organizations to use their very finite human or financial resources on such 
projects. People who need reference materials, including the AIS checklists, 
should bite the $ bullet and buy them.  

<< However, we are very well served by AIS and the current checklists. I've
 been trying to identify some Asiatic lillies, and have learned that lilly 
growers are at about the level irisdom was at around 1920, with all 
registrations handled by RHS, and I am pretty unclear about how to access 
them. It really makes me appreciate the efforts of early and current 
irisarians. >>

Yes. One of the reasons AIS was formed was to straighten out the nomenclature 
of the genus and, following the example of the American Peony Society, from 
which AIS in large part arose, the work that was done in the early days and 
which continues to be done today is superb. The Checklist from the years of 
the Second World War is not all one might desire, and that is unfortunate, 
but the world was in chaos. No AIS annual meetings were held from 1942 
through 1945. Resources were directed elsewhere. 

The fact is we already have easy access to excellent Checklist information in 
a very convenient and affordable form, and every scrap of it brought to you 
by volunteers working for AIS over the years.  

Anner Whitehead
HIPSource@aol.com

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