Re: Botanical Gardens Database

At 12:03 PM 5/17/2002, David King wrote:
>Sean -
>
>How about a "searchable" database?  Enter name or location... word in
>description?
>
>david

David -

Something like www.Google.com is by far the best searchable resource for 
something like this.  Using a sophisticated search engine means you can 
find information both inside and outside of compiled lists.  I use the 
'advanced search' to enter phrases such as the full name of the 
garden.  Often the web developers include the name in the native language, 
but this is not consistent.  Learning how to refine a complex search using 
one of these resources is the best route.  Some sites have even entered 
this data as keyword 'meta tags' into their HTML which helps the search 
engines enormously, but more often not.  Searching on both the English and 
foreign language versions of the names increases your result set.  Many of 
these gardens also have various forms of their names - official as well as 
colloquial!    ;-)

Technology is only as good as those who develop it - otherwise there would 
never have been a 'dot com' boom and bust and I'd be out of a job (i.e. 
there would be little to do!).  Working as a computer systems analyst (my 
other hat) for the California Digital Library for the past 18 years has 
allowed to see into the real IT community - Libraries!!!  Librarians have 
been developing approaches for variable information such as this for many 
decades.  It is interesting to see so many businesses naively trying to 
re-invent this approach over and over again, apparently not aware that the 
work has already been done, available as a working model for the Internet!

Regards,
Seán O.

h o r t u l u s   a p t u s     -    'a garden suited to its purpose'
Seán A. O'Hara            fax (707) 667-1173         sean@support.net
710 Jean Street, Oakland, CA 94610-1459, U.S.A.
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