Citing, Contact, Background & Design
Citing • Contact • Background • Database Design • Software
Citing This Database
To give due credit to the original authors and contributors, please cite data taken from this database by the record where possible. Species descriptions contain a formatted citation crediting the contributor and this should be used as the primary source.
Individual images, maps, and potentially other items in the future can be pasted into websites via a gadget system. Each image and map on species pages and elsewhere has a 
button from which you may generate the necessary code.
Please cite the database itself as:
Shorthouse, David P. Editor. 2008. The Nearctic Spider Database. World Wide Web electronic publication. http://www.canadianarachnology.org/data/canada_spiders/. (Accessed: 5/13/2008 8:40:45 AM)
Contact Information
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The Nearctic Spider Database c/o David Shorthouse Marine Biological Laboratory, Broderick House 7 MBL Street Woods Hole, MA 02543 Email address (preferred): 
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Background
The overall goals of this database are to compile species lists, generate distribution maps, and provide tools to assist with the identification of every species of spider in the Nearctic. In the spirit of open-access (and since much of this information was publicly funded), outputs are free and interactive.
The Nearctic Spider Database saw the light of day June 2005 after the The World Spider Catalog, ver. 5.1 was obtained as a Microsoft Access database. This resource was amazingly thorough and had the power to dynamically match the dizzying array of historic spider names to present-day names. After about a week of intensive juggling, normalizing, and updating nomenclature to the currently available Catalog, putting this resource to work in a user-friendly format became an obsession. With very little searching, a number of open source packages were discovered. The Linux-based operating system called Debian, the server-strength database entitled MySQL, a web server called Apache, and a mapping application called MapServer can all be quickly and easily installed and configured on very inexpensive and ultra low-power machines. A brief note was published in the Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods) to announce the database and provide an indication of its capabilities and a follow-up seminar was delivered November 3, 2005 at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada and Alberta. The response was very positive in large part because the entire system cost a little more than $500CA and consumes not much more electricity than a 40W light bulb. Since November 2005, Google Map and Google Earth outputs were configured to view real-time maps of spider collection data. There is now a steady stream of web page tweaks and updates to provide new and interesting ways of searching for and viewing these spider occurrence data. One feature in particular has gained a lot of interest by a broad base of users and that is the Google Map selector box. Experimental gadgets and features, many of which are applicable to other biodiversity informatics projects, are discussed at iSpiders prior to implementation here.
When new taxonomic information results in different classifications or new species to the Nearctic list, updates are made to the World Spider Catalog then quickly mirrored in this database. This is a manual procedure, which ensures accurate representation of historic to present-day names, but in no way affects identifications as noted on specimen labels. A massive table of synonyms or other historic names is used as a "nomenclator" to permit the grouping of specimens according to their currently recognized names.
A number of similar biodiversity databases inspired its production. These include but are not limited to AntWeb (California Academy of Sciences), The Strickland Entomological Museum (University of Alberta), and FishBase. An attempt was made to combine the best features of all these online databases while maintaining a thorough and intuitive web site.
Collection record data are fanned out to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) using a DiGIR connection and also to DiscoverLife using flat text files. Links to species descriptions pages are shared via flat text files with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the Universal Biological Indexer and Organizer (uBio), BiologyBrowser (Thomson), and other taxonomic and biodiversity portals.
Database Design
Material displayed on The Nearctic Spider Database web
pages appear as a result of a scheduled union of all contributors' data tables
(represented in yellow below). Compiling specimen data is typically an arduous task because of the
varied use of names through time. However, the union of all contributors' data
is first filtered through a massive "Synonyms" table that permits grouping of records according to the
currently accepted names and authorship (source of this taxonomic data). Should these names change in the
future, minor adjustments are made to "Synonyms", "CurrentSpeciesList",
"Genera", or even "Families" tables (below) depending on what sorts of revisions
lead to the accepted nomenclature. Most importantly,
specimen nomenclature as written on catalog labels remains static. Contributors of specimen records use an online application to examine and adjust potential conflicts in species concepts, geocoding, nomenclature, among other real-time tools.
Data Security and Management
All data and lists that appear on this web site
appear as a result of contributions via password-protected
accounts. Contributors are encouraged to keep a local copy of their data and to not use this database as a replacement for their own database or spreadsheet catalogs.
Transaction logs are scheduled for back-up on a nightly basis and
data tables are scheduled for back-up once a week. Every week, these are
transferred off-site.
Software
The following applications were used & or modified to develop web outputs for The Nearctic Spider Database:
| Description | Source |
| Mapping Application: | MapServer (open source) |
| Search: | Zoom Search (commercial) |
| Flash-based charts: | XML/SWF Charts (freeware) |
| AJAX Contributor Application: | Rico LiveGrid (open source) |
| WYSIWYG editor: | TinyMCE (open source) |