Articles
THE USE OF OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGIES IN DEVELOPING BOTANICAL DATABASES
Article number
894_16
Pages
153 – 159
Language
English
Abstract
The Jamaican Virtual Herbarium (JVH) is an online, botanical database utility.
It provides patrons with remote access to over 1,900 herbarium specimen records and images from the University of the West Indies (Mona Campus) and Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) herbaria.
These are Jamaicas two, internationally recognised, herbaria.
The JVH was developed based on the integration of the Windows XP® operating system with three open-source software utilities; namely, the Apache® web server, My Structured Query Language (MySQL®) database management system and the Hypertext Pre-processor (PHPTM) scripting language.
Together they constitute the popularly known WAMP software application stack.
The incorporation of these free, developer-community supported utilities was integral to the success of the JVH. The WAMP architecture currently facilitates web-based interfaces that handle in-house data entry and maintenance as well as public (end-user) database queries from the World Wide Web.
The JVH currently serves a worldwide, mainly botanically inclined, community and records, on average, 85 visits per month; 56 of these being new monthly visitors (March – August, 2010). The JVH may be found at www.jamaicavirtualherbarium.com.
This paper demonstrates the applicability of open source webpage development utilities to areas of specialised research where horticultural applications could also benefit.
It provides patrons with remote access to over 1,900 herbarium specimen records and images from the University of the West Indies (Mona Campus) and Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) herbaria.
These are Jamaicas two, internationally recognised, herbaria.
The JVH was developed based on the integration of the Windows XP® operating system with three open-source software utilities; namely, the Apache® web server, My Structured Query Language (MySQL®) database management system and the Hypertext Pre-processor (PHPTM) scripting language.
Together they constitute the popularly known WAMP software application stack.
The incorporation of these free, developer-community supported utilities was integral to the success of the JVH. The WAMP architecture currently facilitates web-based interfaces that handle in-house data entry and maintenance as well as public (end-user) database queries from the World Wide Web.
The JVH currently serves a worldwide, mainly botanically inclined, community and records, on average, 85 visits per month; 56 of these being new monthly visitors (March – August, 2010). The JVH may be found at www.jamaicavirtualherbarium.com.
This paper demonstrates the applicability of open source webpage development utilities to areas of specialised research where horticultural applications could also benefit.
Authors
P.E. Rose, D.F. Webber, T. Commock
Keywords
database, horticulture, phyto-geographic distribution, herbarium
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