Hi Steve -

I asked the same question about 3 years ago. I received the following answer from Glenn Garneau.


"Names can be imported into the TWB from files formatted appropriately -- see the User's Guide under importing names

http://www.itis.usda.gov/twb_ug.pdf



So, you should be able to export the content from the Access database into properly formatted text files and then import that into the TWB -- either into a blank database or into your existing database -- and from there into Specify."


I have never tried this import, but I suspect it would work. It is just hard to set up. I believe you need a copy of the Taxonomic Workbench to make the import happen. http://www.itis.usda.gov/twb.html


Good luck!


Paul VS

Steve,

What I gather from Paul's message is that he has never tried the import process but I wasn't sure that was your question. I tried (and tried) to import "ITIS format" files downloaded from the web three years ago before learning from Glen that one needs to import from files from Taxonomic Workbench which is fairly straightforward (if nervewracking when your taxon database is many 10's of thousands of names large). The files provided on the Specify website are presumably Taxonomic Workbench files whereas the ones on the ITIS website are presumably "ITIS format". I routinely import pieces of the ITIS database after downloading and 'adjusting' their taxon files in the Taxonomic Workbench (which ITIS will provide for free). As to the underlying "minimal format", it is any Taxonomic Workbench file. The exact tables and fields that Specify uses is a mystery to me but they are used to build the taxonomic tree and so at least contain information about relationships (parent-daughter information) in addition to the data fields present in the name records. I think ITIS unique identifiers are used to identify names in the databases. I presume what you would like to do is transform your own taxon file to a format importable into Specify. So, if you can get your data into ITIS format (look at a downloaded ITIS FILE), you can import it into TWB, then import the TWB file into Specify. Incidentally, I just received the latest issue of Taxonomic Workbench and there was some question as to whether or not it is compatible with Specify 5, and IT IS.

Mark Mayfield