Below are the instructions for availing yourself of these services
It is surprizingly quick and there a quite few formats of reports you
can get from it...
cheers
jim
The Uniform Resource Locator for this document is:
gopher://huh.harvard.edu:70/00/collections_info/subject/Botany/maildata.srv
The E-mail Data Server is a database system that delivers
specimen data over the Internet and over any network with a mail
gateway to it. The system allows biologists to send simple
key-word queries via email and receive plant specimen data in
return. Any meaningful word may be used in a query including:
plant family names, generic names, specific epithets, locality
information, dates, collectors' names, etc.
Currently, three specimen databases are accessible on the network:
1) Type specimens of the mint family from the Harvard
Herbaria, comprising 1100 records.
2) The complete herbarium catalog of the Michigan State
University, Kellogg Biological Station Herbarium, an NSF LTER
site, consisting of 6000 specimen records.
3) The Flora of Mt. Kinabalu specimen database of 16,300
specimen records of all known vascular plant collections from
the mountain.
E-mail addresses for sending queries are:
Harvard Mint Types: herbdata@huh.harvard.edu
Kellogg Herbarium: herbdata%kbs.decnet@clvax1.cl.msu.edu
Flora of Mt. Kinabalu: herbdata@herbarium.bpp.msu.edu
E-mail addresses for sending corrections and annotations to the
specimens:
Harvard: boufford@huh.harvard.edu (David Boufford)
Kellogg: tonsor%kbs.decnet@clvax1.cl.msu.edu (Steve Tonsor)
Kinabalu: beaman@ibm.cl.msu.edu (John Beaman)
Usage
To use the E-mail specimen data server, send a message to a
server containing two commands. The first should specify which
specimens to retrieve based on words within the text of the
specimen records. The second command informs the mail server of
the address to send replies. Additional formatting and help
commands are recognized by the servers but are optional.
The commands the server understands are: "help" "format="
"replyaddress=" and "keyword=". It does not matter whether the
commands are in uppercase or lowercase characters. They may be
abbreviated as shown below. Each email query should not contain
more than one of each of the commands.
Command Syntax
help;
If in a message by itself, the E-Mail server attempts to
return this file as a help message. This message is also
returned if the server receives a query with an incorrect
syntax.
keyword= ;
or
k= ;
In the format: keyword = word1 or word2 or word3 ... ;
or k = word1 or word2 or word3 ... ;
These are the keywords you are seeking matches for. The
semicolon at the end of the keyword specification is required.
"Or" is required to separate multiple keywords.
format=format number;
or
f=format number;
This determines the format of the data in the return mail
message to you.
Acceptable values for format number are:
Number Description Data Format Output Width
------ ---------------------------------------- -----------
1 Family, species name, accession number 80
2 Fields in #1 & morph. features and location 132
3 Fields in #2 & collector, date and label 132
4 Fields in #3 & previous determination,
determined or verified by, determination date 132
5 Number of specimens of each species sorted
alphabetically by family 80
6 Same as 4, with all data fields but in an
80 column report format for printing 80
The semicolon at the end of the format line is required. If the
format option is omitted, the default value is format 6.
replyaddress=address;
or
r=address;
The semicolon at the end of the line is required. The reply
address may be any legal BITNET or Internet address. Mail
users on gatewayed networks such as BITNET, JANET, MCIMail,
Compuserve, etc., need to specify the appropriate form of
their address for mail coming from an Internet host. For
example, BITNET users should add the domain ".bitnet" to the
end of their BITNET host computer name as shown in the example
below.
Examples: r=gmendel@austriavm.bitnet; (BITNET)
r=agray@huh.harvard.edu; (Internet)
r=cdarwin@vax.forestry.oxford.ac.uk; (JANET)
Example Queries
EXAMPLE 1: Searching on a genus
To: herbdata@huh.harvard.edu
Subject:
k=coleus;
r=wallace@austriavm.bitnet; (for a BITNET host named
"austriavm")
f=5;
EXAMPLE 2: Searching on localities
To: herbdata%kbs.decnet@clvax1.cl.msu.edu
Subject:
keyword=Kent or Kalamazoo or Ingham ; These are Michigan
counties.
replyaddress=fred@yaba.daba.doo.edu ;
format=5;
EXAMPLE 3: Searching for specific characters or phenology
To: herbdata@herbarium.bpp.msu.edu
Subject:
k=flower or flowering or berry;
r=ybear@honeypot.jlystone.pk.gov;
f=6;
J. H. Beach
Harvard University Herbaria
22 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
beach@huh.harvard.edu
22 January 1992
jim
___________________________________________________________________________
Jim Croft [Herbarium CBG] internet: jrc@anbg.gov.au
Australian National Botanic Gardens voice: +61-6-2509 490
GPO Box 1777, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA fax: +61-6-2509 599
______Biodiversity Directorate, Australian Nature Conservation Agency______