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Breeding Bird Atlas participants
The thousands of people who contributed
so much time and effort to their local atlas projects, either in
field work or coordination, made this possible. These participants
spent tens of thousands of hours scouring their local haunts,
familiar and unfamiliar, in search of nesting evidence. They produced
the raw material on which the BBA Explorer was built. People who
helped us obtain data from individual projects are listed on
each atlas 'home' page in BBA Explorer.
Feedback and review
The participants of the Maryland and DC breeding bird atlas, and that project's
board at the Maryland Ornithological Society,
were the guinea pigs as we developed BBA Manager & BBA Explorer,
diligently reporting errors while keeping up with data entry for
their project; Walter Ellison, Bob Solem, Elliot Kirschbaum, Fred
Fallon, Jane Fallon, Sue Ricciardi, Charles Vaughn, and Chan Robbins, and a host
of others from Maryland provided extensive (and most welcome) feedback.
A year later Vermont BBAjoined in, and Rosalind Renfrew, Kent
McFarland, Ted Murin, Dave Hoag and others were among the more
patient reporters of glitches and requests for their improvements. Janet Evander provided early usability critiques. Many
others contributed as well, and we welcome additions to this list
for people we overlooked.
Ongoing redesign & improvements to BBA Explorer and BBA Manager (since 2004)
In 2004 we redesigned BBA Manager to accommodate a growing number of atlases, and expand the public search tools into what is now
BBA Explorer. In addition to input mentioned above, a volunteer team from the MD & DC, New Mexico, and Vermont atlases patiently reviewed potential new screens
and generated feedback and ideas: Ted Murin, John Sutton,
Rosalind Renfrew, Walter Ellison, Steve Antell, Steve Fettig, Nancy
Martin, George Jett, and Sylvia Harris. Also, more recently, Joan Walsh from Mass Atlas II and Anthony Gonzon of Delaware Atlas II have contributed ideas for new reports and improved presentation. We love feedback, keep it coming.
Funding
This tool is free to users. Staff time, software, hardware, and other resources are contributed
by Department of Interior's USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
in Laurel, MD USA, and the National Biological Information Infrastructure
(NBII). Data collection for each project, and sponsorship, is discussed elsewhere; see our
Sponsors page.
Inspiration and support
NORAC members (North American Ornithological Atlas Committee) welcomed and encouraged this project. Steve Kelling and his team at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology set the bar
high with regard to what birders can do with the web. Denis
LePage also encouraged us in early development, and sent us his
data model for the Ontario BBA project which was very helpful.
Denis' web page (linked from BBA Explorer home) is very comprehensive
and helped us track down atlas information. At Patuxent: Marshall Howe and Keith
Pardieck provided helpful feedback and ideas, and Jang Byun provided
general database wisdom. Our information technology staff at Patuxent, especially
Lisa Whitman and Lois Loges, keep the servers and sites running and the databases backed up.
Our development team
Susan Goplen and her team at the USGS Rocky Mountain Mapping
Center built our BBA mapping tool (using ArcIMS) that we have since modified and
added projects to. Erika Hanner and Kristen Danielson helped with importing several atlases, and even re-entered
two state atlas project datasets by hand that we could only obtain on
paper. Naoko Griffin, Anna Ott, Jessica Hopkins, and Allison Sussman imported many atlas datasets, created and maintained GIS data, and contributed much to the content and functionality of most of the pages through extensive testing and brainstorming.
Bruce
Peterjohn was the originator of and driving force for this electronic
atlas, as well as the go-to for problem-solving,
atlas knowledge, and general project direction. The database development, software architecture, and web page coding and design (and any bugs) were
completed by Mark Wimer.
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Mark Wimer and Bruce Peterjohn
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Last updated July 2007
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