Could you be more explicit?

In particular, the issue isn't whether there is technology to track something, but how to do so in an affordable way. Each industry, and indeed each company, has its idiosyncracies, and realizes that if it can shave pennies, it can save dollars, and can possibly afford to improve the way it does business.

Is it arrogance that argues to consider how to have a poor "industry", such as is the systematics enterprise, save dollars?

We're all aware that Janzen, for example, has used off-the-shelf technology to solve a particular "product" tracking problem he had to address. Before him, others "solved" their problems with the technology they had at hand at the time ; Dan, in his time, carried the solution a giant step further.

But, are we convinced that the ultimate solution was achieved --that costs are now and forever minimized, that _everyone_ has at her disposal _the_ solution?

If the solutions lie in examination and adoption/adaptation of industrial-strength solutions, fine. Who has excluded that avenue of inquiry?

"Somehow biologists _always_ behave as if...."??? Very general condemnation that I don't think stands the spotlight of inspection, and in particular, I don't see the connection with the recent specimen tracking discussion on Taxacom....

We have looked, and adapted. We have not been surprised. We still find it can cost money which we must first obtain. We find that industrial and informatics technology does evolve so we continue to ask questions about how _we_ should next do business. Is that arrogance? There are very few individuals from other businesses who come flocking up to systematists and collections managers and say "Let me solve your problem"; it's up to us to state our problem and to seek solutions to it. Those solutions, as you point out, are often on someone else's shelf.

Pin makers make special pins; cabinet makers make special cases; drawer makers make special drawers; box makers make special unit trays; software writers write special software; ...; you might call those unique solutions, derived from common-place industrial technology. Peter