sdavid

I was wondering if the Society has considered uploading past HK Bird reports as PDF's (or similar) onto the Bulletin Board or on its Website?   Some of these older Reports are no longer available to purchase, and whilst I believe they may be available at the Society's office to look through, it'd be great for HK and overseas birders to have access to these.

In particular, some of the articles and papers on bird ID and behaviour would be really interesting to be able to access for a whole host of readers.  Likewise, the systematic lists produced would also be useful tools for people.

It may be that the papers and systematic lists are held in separate Forums, but all of this information would provide a really useful resource.  I'm sure many of the authors of this earlier work would be happy for their efforts to be on show, and may even encourage others to produce similar work in coming years.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this.

wcaptain

I support the idea. But just wonder whether HKBWS will pay more due to storing these old report files on the website. A cost-effectiveness concern if the download rate is low

Another option is HKBWS produces a CD-rom containing all these old reports and then sell this CD to interested members.

Captain

[ Last edited by wcaptain at 14/01/2009 09:13 ]

Web Osprey

There should enough space on server for such purpose if necessary.  

My own personal concern is where and how we allocate some resources to do those scanning job. volunteer?

HFCheung

Other then the latest 3-4 issue, all others have been scanned some years ago.  I prefer the sale option.  I have asked the office to work on it.

HF Cheung

sdavid

Seems a bit harsh to sell these considering copies of The Avifauna of Hong Kong were being given away recently (?).

I don't fully appreciate the dynamics of how websites operate particularly with regards to storage space, downloads etc.,  but surely there must already be large quantities of space already being taken up in these BBS pages by way of multiple photographs of the same bird or average pictures of common species which could be put to better use? Whilst many photographs are of terrific quality and do allow further examination of a variety of bird species, it must be said that there are a lot of mediocre postings out there too.

Recently a good example of how these ID guides would be useful is from the following discussion http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/view ... 7264&highlight= with the Dusky/Yellow-streaked Warbler where mention of an ID paper in the 1994 HK Bird Report is made (in the birdforum thread - http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=132764).

Anyway, just my thoughts.

Web Osprey

no worry David, the current BBS only occupied a very small portion of our server space:

19.86 MB for BBS message.
151.04 MB for attachments.

most photographer using their own storage space to post their photos.

Owen

HFCheung

Thanks for reminding me again on this issue.  The next committee meeting is next week.  I better bring this up for discussion.  I see no major technical difficulties in doing either.  But if one can recover some cost from the work, then I think we should do that.

Since CY will retire soon, that is why there is some urgency to reduce the stock of the Avifauna.  Even with the offer of free copies to members, the stock is not going fast enough yet.  I suggest keen members can have one more free copy from HKBWS, one for use in the office, and one for home use.

HF Cheung