On 1 Aug 1995 at 00:05:29 -0700 Peter Rauch asked:

Is there an international registry of, and a mechanism for registering and arbitrating unique codens/acronyms/prefixes?

In Ichthyology there is no International Registry. However, members of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists some years ago developed an extensive list of Institutional Symbolic Codes that have been generally accepted by the international ichthyological and herpetological communities for institutions housing lower vertebrate materials. The list also includes a number of officially rejected codes and can be used to track the fate of smaller collections that have either been transferred among one or several collections or that are no longer in operation.

The ASIH Collections Committee maintains the official version of the list and makes additions and corrections as a formal part of its activity. Institutions themselves largely decide what Standard Code they prefer to use and can petition the ASIH Collections Committee for inclusion in the list. This is necessary accomodate new collections and institutional name changes. We try to oblige whenever possible, but rely primarily on precedence, as well as it can be determined, to prevent the use of identical codes. Workers publishing in Copeia the Society's Official Journal must conform to this list.

This original list was published as:

Leviton, A. E., R. H. Gibbs, Jr., E. Heal, and C. E. Dawson. 1985. Standards in herpetology and ichthyology: Part I. Standard symbolic codes for institutional resource collections in herpetology and ichthyology. Copeia 1985:802-832.

Last year a copy of the list was transferred from GCRL where it is maintained to the Cornell Biodiversity/Collections Server to facilitate access and use by the larger museums and systematics community. This copy can be accessed via: http://www.cornell.edu.

An updated official version of the list will soon be made available through the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Home Page (http://www.utexas.edu/depts/tnhc/.www). The updated list will include access to data on North American ichthyological collections recently published in: Poss, S. G. and B. B. Collette. 1995. Second Survey of Fish Collections in the United States and Canada. Copeia 1995(1):48-70. It will also provide Web-mediated mechanisms for institutions to update information on their holdings so that future collections surveys can be conducted on-line as recommended in the survey.

It is a goal of the ASIH Collections Committee to develop information and links to all world collections currently listed as holding lower vertebrate materials. Should other disciplines choose to use the ASIH list or develop their own list, conflict may arise between departments within a given institution as to what they would prefer to be called. The choice of code is primarily up to the institution, so long as their preferred code is not presently being used ("preoccupied") by another institution already listed. The ASIH Collections Committee is prepared to work with other organizations toward standardization of a wide range of collections-related information and procedures. Although ichthyological and herpetological collections differ in that the former do not usually provide unique catalog numbers to individual specimens as is typically done for the latter, we would welcome input from colleagues in other disciplines and other societies so that the "guarantee" Dr. Rauch seeks can soon be universally acheived.

For further information please contact:

Stuart G. Poss Chair, ASIH Data Standards Subcommittee Gulf Coast Research Laboratory P.O. Box 7000 Ocean Springs, MS 39564

Ph: (601)872-4238 Fax: (601)872-4204 Email: sgposs at whale.st.usm.edu

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