Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Wasn't sure where to post this, mods can move it to anywhere they deem more appropriate.
For those who may not be on the mailing list, this is the text from a mail I received today. I have no idea what the implications of this are or how anything will change but can we expect a greater bias towards adopting American nomenclature in future?
'Lynx Edicions and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology join forces on HBW and IBC'
We are pleased to announce a new partnership between Lynx Edicions and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as we join forces to create a permanent home for the renowned Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW), along with the vibrant Internet Bird Collection (IBC) and its passionate global community of contributors. These two grand-scale projects will undergo further expansions and enhancements in their new digital home at the Cornell Lab, benefitting from the Lab’s technological infrastructure for supporting web-based publications, the Macaulay Library’s 100-year legacy of media archives and capabilities, and the rapidly growing data resources and global birding community of eBird.
With the Handbook of the Birds of the World, Lynx Edicions set an audacious goal: to create scholarly documentation and illustrations of the plumages, life histories, and systematics of all the world’s birds in a single, monumental reference series. That goal was accomplished with the completion of the 17-volume set in 2013. Achieving this magnum opus was not the end of the story, as Lynx then built an expansive online presence for the HBW material. HBW Alive has engaged a global community of authors to update content, building a lively network of collaborators and contributors. Alongside the HBW series, in 2002 Lynx developed and launched the Internet Bird Collection—an online community archive of multimedia celebrated by thousands of bird enthusiasts around the world. As HBW Alive was launched, the IBC enhanced its sister project via direct links to rich media that illustrate important facets of behavior described in the HBW Alive accounts.
For the past 25 years, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has invested heavily in leveraging the power of the internet and rapidly advancing technologies to share authoritative information about birds with the world’s scientists and with public audiences. From developing revolutionary tools for birders such as eBird and Merlin, to gathering and archiving the world’s natural history media at the Macaulay Library, to serving the professional ornithological community through scholarly digital publications such as the Birds of North America Online and Neotropical Birds, the Lab is committed to developing and maintaining the technological and staffing infrastructure required to support and grow these services.
Our new collaboration combines the strengths of both institutions to create the best services for ornithologists, birders, and nature-lovers worldwide. We particularly welcome the opportunity to bring together our worldwide contributor communities to share in further developing these resources. Just as Lynx and the Lab have joined forces, we invite the HBW and IBC communities to join with the Cornell Lab’s global contributor community to become an even stronger, unified voice for understanding and conserving birds.
We are extremely excited by the possibilities and opportunities presented by the coming together of the globally significant ornithological projects and content of Lynx and the Cornell Lab. We know that questions will naturally come up, especially around the specifics of the transition, communities, media, and data. We intend for the look and feel of this content to remain unchanged for the near future, while we are very busy creating enhanced frameworks for ambitious new offerings to better serve our global audiences. Detailed announcements about the project will appear in the coming months, with messages about the specifics most important to our numerous birding and scientific communities. In the meantime, we thank you for your support and patience, and we hope that you share our excitement about this opportunity to sustain the excellence of the HBW and IBC long into the future.'
For those who may not be on the mailing list, this is the text from a mail I received today. I have no idea what the implications of this are or how anything will change but can we expect a greater bias towards adopting American nomenclature in future?
'Lynx Edicions and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology join forces on HBW and IBC'
We are pleased to announce a new partnership between Lynx Edicions and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as we join forces to create a permanent home for the renowned Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW), along with the vibrant Internet Bird Collection (IBC) and its passionate global community of contributors. These two grand-scale projects will undergo further expansions and enhancements in their new digital home at the Cornell Lab, benefitting from the Lab’s technological infrastructure for supporting web-based publications, the Macaulay Library’s 100-year legacy of media archives and capabilities, and the rapidly growing data resources and global birding community of eBird.
With the Handbook of the Birds of the World, Lynx Edicions set an audacious goal: to create scholarly documentation and illustrations of the plumages, life histories, and systematics of all the world’s birds in a single, monumental reference series. That goal was accomplished with the completion of the 17-volume set in 2013. Achieving this magnum opus was not the end of the story, as Lynx then built an expansive online presence for the HBW material. HBW Alive has engaged a global community of authors to update content, building a lively network of collaborators and contributors. Alongside the HBW series, in 2002 Lynx developed and launched the Internet Bird Collection—an online community archive of multimedia celebrated by thousands of bird enthusiasts around the world. As HBW Alive was launched, the IBC enhanced its sister project via direct links to rich media that illustrate important facets of behavior described in the HBW Alive accounts.
For the past 25 years, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has invested heavily in leveraging the power of the internet and rapidly advancing technologies to share authoritative information about birds with the world’s scientists and with public audiences. From developing revolutionary tools for birders such as eBird and Merlin, to gathering and archiving the world’s natural history media at the Macaulay Library, to serving the professional ornithological community through scholarly digital publications such as the Birds of North America Online and Neotropical Birds, the Lab is committed to developing and maintaining the technological and staffing infrastructure required to support and grow these services.
Our new collaboration combines the strengths of both institutions to create the best services for ornithologists, birders, and nature-lovers worldwide. We particularly welcome the opportunity to bring together our worldwide contributor communities to share in further developing these resources. Just as Lynx and the Lab have joined forces, we invite the HBW and IBC communities to join with the Cornell Lab’s global contributor community to become an even stronger, unified voice for understanding and conserving birds.
We are extremely excited by the possibilities and opportunities presented by the coming together of the globally significant ornithological projects and content of Lynx and the Cornell Lab. We know that questions will naturally come up, especially around the specifics of the transition, communities, media, and data. We intend for the look and feel of this content to remain unchanged for the near future, while we are very busy creating enhanced frameworks for ambitious new offerings to better serve our global audiences. Detailed announcements about the project will appear in the coming months, with messages about the specifics most important to our numerous birding and scientific communities. In the meantime, we thank you for your support and patience, and we hope that you share our excitement about this opportunity to sustain the excellence of the HBW and IBC long into the future.'
