By F. Christian Thompson and Jennifer E. Fairman

Biosystematic Information is critical to Human welfare (Why Museums?). Natural History Museums are the main sources of Biosystematic Information. Biosystematic Information is organized and indexed by scientific names. Scientific names are associated with living organisms by the process of identification. Identifications are documented by vouchers. Natural history museums contain collections of specimens and vouchers, literature, and identification tools. To access these resources users have traditionally had to visit museums. Today new approaches are being developed to disseminated biosystematic information using the World Wide Web and the Internet. The Diptera Unit at the Smithsonian presents its WWW site as a prototype interface for Entomology. Here there are lists of workers associated with our collection and science, lists of the vouchers (species lists) in our collections as well as the data associated with them (specimen label data), indexes (databases) to scientific names and research reports. General information on flies and groups of flies is also provided, along with links to other sources of BioSystematic Information.

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This presentation was given at the Eastern Branch Meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Williamsburg on 27 February 1996. The presentation was converted to its current World Wide Web format for the 150th Birthday Party of the Smithsonian Institution on the Mall on 10 & 11 August 1996.