UM Newsletter No. 9 [9/I/96] Home > Newsletter > No. 9 Number 9 January 1996 Keeping the world of malacology informed. UNITAS MALACOLOGICA Our aim is to further the study of Mollusca by individuals, societies and institutions world- wide. ISSN 1011-2375Unitas Malacologica NewsletterPublished by Unitas Malacologica Editor: Winston F. Ponder, c/o Australian Museum, 6 College Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, AustraliaPhone 61 2 320 6120 Fax 61 2 320 6050.E-mail [email protected]; http://www.ucd.ie/cobid/unitas/newsletter/newslet009.html (1 of 19) [10/3/2007 8:19:54 AM] UM Newsletter No. 9 [9/I/96] [email protected] Copy for Newsletter. Please, if possible, send by e-mail or disk (DOS, or, less preferably, Mac format). Otherwise hard copy is OK. Editorial This is the first issue of a new-approach Unitas newsletter which should appear twice yearly. The format and coverage are by no means fixed and suggestions for improvement are welcome. This issue and those following will be made available on WWW, as well as being distributed to members in hard copy. The purpose of the newsletter is to bring information to members of Unitas that is of interest to the international malacological community. However, this can only be achieved with your help - in other words information must be received before it can be disseminated. I await your input. Letters, news and comment are all very welcome. I would like to start a news and information column about what is happening in laboratories and departments around the world - perhaps in the next issue. The next Congress will be in Washington DC, USA. As the first Congress to be held outside Europe, it represents a significant and welcome change for Unitas. The move for change met with virtually unanimous agreement at the Vigo General Assembly suggesting that we now have reached the point where future proposals for Unitas congresses to be held in other parts of the world can be considered on their merits, as is the case with many other similar organisations. One might ask why we need a newsletter these days when much of what it contains can be found on WWW or, if not, could easily be placed there. Searching WWW takes time (just try finding news about meetings or new books for example!) and, surprising as it may be to some, not everyone has access to internet facilities. Our aim is to make information such as that listed here readily and conveniently accessible in both electronic format and hard copy so that those that have chosen to work on molluscs are better served. Letters to the Editor Does Unitas need a journal? At present people have no real need to belong to UNITAS other than to obtain a discount on the congress registration fee and a vague feeling of solidarity and support for the cause. It seems to us that the only way to get faithful subscribers is to ensure they get some tangible benefit coming through their letterboxes regularly. The answer is a high quality JOURNAL. This http://www.ucd.ie/cobid/unitas/newsletter/newslet009.html (2 of 19) [10/3/2007 8:19:54 AM] UM Newsletter No. 9 [9/I/96] would publish some of the Symposia from the triennial congresses, as well as regular papers and also be a vehicle for promoting Unitas. We realise that some malacologists believe that there are already too many specialist journals. However, the sensible thing in this case would be to take over an existing publication, for there is no doubt that all malacological journals would benefit from a larger subscriber base. It seems to us that there are several possibilities here, all of which would need careful handling. There are several ailing journals which could be relaunched with new management/editorial teams and a larger subscriber base. Alternatively, one of the major malacological journals which is already international in authorship and broad in scope and content, could somehow become the Unitas publication. This would need careful handling if the various malacological societies, which publish and nurture these journals were not to lose out financially or perhaps, wither away. The Unitas subscription would of course have to be raised to cover the costs of producing the journal. However, the benefits of having a loyal and supportive subscriber base and a high quality journal would be great. John Taylor & Yuri Kantor John D.Taylor, Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD. Tel. 0171 938 9359 Fax 0171 938 8754. e-mail: [email protected] Collection management An argument for a planetary magazine that I find of the highest interest would be a worldwide check of information systems used by the various museums to catalogue their collections - products, methods of management and so on. As far as I know there is not a general summary still. The Net can be a fast way to retrieve this information. Stefano Palazzi, via Prampolini 158 - 41100 Modena MO - Italy, phone +39 +59 304345, email: [email protected] OR [email protected] Comments on these and other issues are encouraged - Ed. Obituaries Dr. R. Tucker Abbott. Tucker Abbot died on Friday November 3, 1995, following a long illness. The author of more than 30 books on malacology, Dr. Abbott was probably the world's best known malacologist. Born in 1919 in Watertown, Massachusetts, he was a 1942 graduate of Harvard University, served in World War II, did his Master's Degree at George Washington http://www.ucd.ie/cobid/unitas/newsletter/newslet009.html (3 of 19) [10/3/2007 8:19:54 AM] UM Newsletter No. 9 [9/I/96] University in 1953 and his Ph.D. in 1955. From 1955 he worked in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and then Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia until 1969. In 1970 he became Assistant Director of the Delaware Museum of Natural History in Wilmington, leaving that position in 1977 to set up American Malacologists, Inc. in Melbourne, Florida. He became associated with the Bailey-Mathews Shell Museum in 1989, an association he maintained (as Director) until his death. Dr. Abbott is survived by his wife, Cecilia, his son and 5 daughters and five grandchildren. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Harold William Harry, died aged 74, at his home in Bellaire, Texas, June 30, 1995. A well- known malacologist, Hal Harry spent his years after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan serving at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Walter Reed Institute of Research, including three years studying epidemiology of Schistosomiasis in Puerto Rico, and as professor of marine biology at Texas A&M University. Post retirement activities included research on oysters. He is survived by his wife, Mildred. His collection of books and research materials has been willed to the Department of Malacology, Houston Museum of Natural Science, 1 Hermann Circle, Houston, Texas, 77030. Unitas projects CLEMAM - Checklist of the European Marine Mollusca CLEMAM 1989-94: The value of computerised checklists has been long recognised but until recently there has been no serious attempt to coordinate and develop existing lists. Unitas became formally involved in coordinating a checklist of European marine molluscs at the Tübingen Congress in 1989 and CLEMAM was initiated. The impetus arose because the Annotated Check-list of the Mediterranean Marine Mollusks by Bruno Sabelli, Riccardo Giannuzzi-Savelli and Daniele Bedulli was nearing completion (subsequently published in 3 vols.). Philippe Bouchet (Paris) was keen to extend the Mediterranean project to include the Atlantic and felt that Unitas was the organisation through which it should be developed. The idea was proposed and endorsed at the General Assembly of Unitas in 1989. With increasing improvements in technology in the following three years, by the time of the Siena Congress (1992) there was tremendous enthusiasm for producing a computer-based checklist under the auspices of Unitas. Mikael Thollesson (Sweden) was working on a nudibranch database which he demonstrated and agreed to develop for CLEMAM. Gary Rosenberg (Philadelphia) had been independently developing his system, which he also demonstrated in Siena (this data base is now available on internet). It was clear that any Unitas/CLEMAM database should be compatible with Gary's system and http://www.ucd.ie/cobid/unitas/newsletter/newslet009.html (4 of 19) [10/3/2007 8:19:54 AM] UM Newsletter No. 9 [9/I/96] between the Siena Congress and the 1995 Vigo Congress there were productive discussions between Mikael and Gary. These culminated in a meeting in the Paris Museum in Dec. 1994 during which the detailed structure of the database was discussed. It was also agreed that Serge Gofas (Paris) should combine the three main, recently published, checklists to form a base on which to build. CLEMAM 1995: At the database workshop of the Vigo Congress, three examples of implementing taxonomic databases were presented: 1. A database (MALACOLOG) of Western Atlantic marine gastropods, developed by Gary Rosenberg and containing ca. 11,000 names and 4,400 valid species; 2. A database structure by Mikael Thollesson; 3. A database (CLEMAM) of European marine molluscs, compiled by Serge Gofas and Jacques le Renard, based on published regional databases and containing ca. 15,000 names and 3,000 valid species. These databases use different formats and software and it was agreed by the workshop that they should be harmonised and brought to a common format. It was agreed that Gary Rosenberg act as editor-in-chief of the CLEMAM/MALACOLOG project. His mandate would be to (a) work with Thollesson and le Renard to achieve a common standard for existing and developing databases; (b) produce relevant software by Jan.