[tn-bird] CBC compiler on-line update August 2002 (retry)
- From: <magreene@xxxxxxxx>
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 07:25:29 -0700
Hopefully this one will be more readable than the last one I sent...
I received the following e-mail from Geoff LeBaron this morning regarding the
Christmas Bird Counts. Thought some of you who might not have gotten it would
be interested.
Mark Greene
Trenton, TN
==================================================
Greetings CBC Compilers,
We hope you?re having a great summer season. By now you should all have
received your 102nd CBC issue of American Birds; the message traffic on the
web suggests that most of you?and your participants?have indeed.
First and foremost, thanks very much for all your comments and critiques of
the ?new style? CBC summary. As many of you well know, we have been talking
with hundreds of participants and Compilers about the impending change over
the past 18 months. Your input is helping us improve and tweak the new
American Birds to emphasize the conservation and ornithological values of the
data.
Copied below are answers to Frequently Asked Questions that you may wish to
share with your participants, or others in your birding community. Many of
the people who received an American Birds this year have never gotten anything
from Audubon about the CBC before, and you may be hearing some of the same
questions as we have. Contrary to one of the frequently aired concerns, this
was not a cost savings venture; rather we invested the same funds to send a
CBC summary issue out to tens of thousands of participants, instead of one
thousand paying subscribers. The response has been terrific. It?s great to
hear from so many people that the 102nd CBC issue has helped them understand
just how important their Christmas Bird Count census efforts are to the very
birds that we all appreciate so much.
We?re well into gearing up for the 103rd CBC season, and are looking forward
to communicating with you more frequently via email. Some people may have new
emails since last season, so if you anticipate a change in your email (or
mailing) address since you did your data entry last season, please let us know
of those updates. Also, please remember that we really do need an email
contact for all compilers?even that of another family member, or a co-compiler
who handles the data entry?so that we can get information out in a more timely
and efficient way. Please contact Avery English at aenglish@xxxxxxxxxxx with
information on your email or address change.
We?re developing the materials for the 103rd CBC Compiler?s Packet right now,
and tweaking the existing data entry pages. Additionally, we?re constantly
updating the CBC home page with new information so don?t forget to take a look
there from time to time. We?ve done lots of updates to the Historical Results
output tool since the data entry season last winter, so if you haven?t played
around with that since then you may be surprised. We?ll bet that you can now
get answers to questions you?ve wanted to pursue in the CBC database. If you
have additional suggestions for how to search the online CBC database we?d
like to hear from you. We?ll continue to improve the website, and hope to
incorporate as many features as possible to help you with your needs.
Thanks again, and have a great summer.
Best,
Geoff Frank
Geoff LeBaron Frank Gill
glebaron@xxxxxxxxxxx fgill@xxxxxxxxxxx
CBC FAQ List
1. Q: Why did I get more than one 102nd CBC issue of American Birds?
A: Some people received more than one CBC issue for several reasons. First
and foremost, we wanted to make sure that everyone that should receive an
issue did get one?so we were conservative in the amount of deletion that was
done from our list. All EXACT duplicates in name and address were deleted,
but variations on how a name was submitted or how the address was spelled were
not picked up by the duplication checking process we used this year. Our cost
analysis showed that it was less expensive to send out the extras rather than
exhaustively de-dupe the database. We also chose to send issues to all names
at any given address?again, in the hopes of getting issues in the hands of as
many people as possible. And many people, in fact, wish to receive a personal
copy. If you received more than one issue, please pass the extra(s) on to
others who didn?t get them!
2. Q. Wasn?t Audubon just trying to save money by producing a smaller
volume?
A. No! Our goal was to use the same budget ($60,000) to produce and
distribute more copies to more participants, gratis. The total costs of
production, printing, and mailing, were very similar to the past several
seasons, even though the circulation increased from 2500 recipients (including
compilers) in 2001 to over 27,000 recipients in 2002.
3. Q: Didn?t you waste a lot of money and paper sending out all these
extra issues?
A: No! As above, costs were the same, and paper use went up by approximately
one-third. The major benefit of this year?s CBC summary issue is that it went
to ten times as many people as ever before, allowing the majority of
participants in the US to finally get a feeling for how important their CBC
efforts over the years have been. Next year we hope to reach 35,000 or more
participants. All we need are their addresses.
4. Q: You say that the full results are available on the web. I can?t
find them as easily as in the book. And what about all the people that don?t
have web access?
A: In fact, the data are much more widely available, and in much more
interactive form on the web than they ever could be in print. (Some folks
complained by email that they had no access to computers and the internet! If
you have access to a computer that is on-line, you can access the data.)
There are currently two methods of inquiry on the CBC home page??Current
Year?s Results? and ?Historical Results.? The first is similar to the
printed results?the every bird and counter listed from each CBC in the current
season. The ?Historical Results? link contains several output tools that
allow you to query the entire CBC database?and download the data into your
computer. The power of this new output tool enhances the value of the CBC, and
therefore the efforts of all participants, even more for ornithological
research and conservation biology.
For the diminishing number of people who do not have easy web access at home
or work, local libraries, friends, or family members will be able to help out.
Above all, we want to recruit young birders to the Christmas Bird Count.
The Internet is a way of life for the next generation.
5. Q: How come you?re still charging us all $5.00 when the publication is so
much smaller, and my name is no longer included?
A: The participant fees that we ask of all field observers supply the funds
to run the entire CBC program each year?including many other aspects of the
program beyond the publication.
Each year, we invest substantial money from other sources (above and beyond
the fee income) in the CBC. Previously we have shared with you the basic
finances of the CBC; fees remain an essential source of support for managing
over 1900 CBC?s continent wide.
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