Dear All: Apologies for an off-topic thread. The Chicago Botanic Garden teamed up with the American Public Gardens Association and the University of Kansas Biodiversity Research Center and Natural History Museum to create the ability for members of scientific and garden enthusiasts to search (on the WWW) the plant record databases of the 16 institutions within the US with the best documented collections - North American Plant Collections Consortium (see below). The grant name is PlantCollections - A Community Solution. The project is funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership program in the Building Digital Resources category. The grant will take 3 years to complete and is limited (at this time) to institutions within the US (by the funding source). We are using a distributed query approach developed at KU called Distributed Generic Information Retrieval (DiGIR) that will permit each institution to maintain control of the information they serve up to the internet portal. We are in the early stages of the grant and are currently conducting audience surveys to determine which fields of data different audiences would be interested in. Conceptually we could offer data related to the climate of each botanic garden, the environmental characteristics of the sites where we collect plants and education/public information about taxa in general (not linked to an accession record). I anticipate our audiences will want to access images as well as create maps. We currently have too many proposed fields to offer and need to narrow them down. To do that, and not eliminate the wrong fields we have contacted representatives of 8 audiences (see below). The members of the PBS listserve will be audience number 9. Actually collectively you all fit into one or more categories of the original 8 audiences. As plant enthusiasts and members of the PBS listserve you all are familiar with what is available, and what you wish were available on the Internet. I would appreciate your sharing your thoughts with me PRIVATELY - <btankers@chicagobotanic.org>. I will be collating audience surveys next week. The participating institutions are: Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Chicago Botanic Garden Highstead Arboretum The Huntington Botanic Garden Landis Arborteum Ganna Walska Lotusland Missouri Botanical Garden The Morton Arboretum Mt. Cuba Center, Inc. Norfolk Botanic Garden North Carolina Arboretum San Francisco Botanical Garden Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Scott Arboretum of Smith College U.S. National Arboretum University of Washington Botanic Garden (used to be Washington Park Arboretum) The eight audiences to be served by the portal are: Curatorial - botanic garden staff Taxonomic/taxonomists Conservation scientists Weed Science Ecology/ecologists Horticulture/horticulturists Education/educators/students Visitors/plant enthusiasts Many thanks, Boyce Tankersley Project Director PlantCollections - A Community Solution Manager of Living Plant Documentation Chicago Botanic Garden 1000 Lake Cook Road Glencoe, IL 60022 tel 847-835-6841 fax 847-835-1635 email btankers@chicagobotanic.org