It has certainly been a busy 8-months since I took over the management of the UK Species Inventory from Charles Hussey last year. As well as bringing myself up to speed with the technical aspects of the database one of my highest priorities was to introduce myself to the people who use it and contribute to it, to let them know that I am here to help. Charles had been busy creating a master taxonomic hierarchy table for nearly a year so one of my first tasks was to work on the backlog of ad-hoc amendments that had built up. This cleared a lot of little problems that had been holding users back and so it was a nice way to both introduce myself and tackle lots of typical issues – new species, changes in synonymy, suspected errors etc.
One little change you might have already noticed is that we have changed the name slightly. It isn’t a big deal but we decided that a taxonomic database isn’t really a “Dictionary” so we have been moving over to “Inventory”. You might find it called either name for a while so I hope it isn’t confusing.
The next few months should be very busy because several major checklist updates are in their final stages of preparation. Some highlights will be long awaited updates to the checklists of: Lichens & Licheniforous fungi (British Lichen Society), Marine Organisms (MSBIAS), Diptera (Peter Chandler), Coleoptera (Andrew Duff) & Ichneumonidae (Gavin Broad).
As well as being a recording scheme organiser (Tachinidae Recording Scheme) my background is in software development so I have also been looking further into the future and designing new ways to work with the data. These plans could potentially bring the live database online so that users could suggest changes and view updates in real time. It’s far from being finished but I have a clear idea of what I’d like to achieve.
I am really enjoying my role here at the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, in the Natural History Museum, so I look forward to working with more of our partners in the coming year.
Written by Chris Raper, Manager of the UK Species Inventory, The Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, The Natural History Museum