A New Use For The Home Computer

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Konrad Schmidt

A New Use For The Home Computer
Konrad Schmidt

When I first began to seriously collect fishes many years ago, I would keep all locations in my head as many fishermen remember their favorite fishing holes. This worked very well in the beginning because I would collect from the same four or five sites every year. However, as my interest in the hobby grew I started collecting from many new sites, and I realized my memory could no longer keep my collections in order. I thought keeping notes of collections would help, but I could not keep the information organized which made it very difficult to use for any future references.

I continued to keep notes for lack of a better system until one day I took a second look at our home computer which I never used. I thought if it can balance a check book it should be able to keep my collection records organized. I pursued the idea, and decided to look at some software programs. I found one called DbASE II that looked like it would fit my needs. I admit it took some work in the beginning, and made many frustrating mistakes, but it was definitely worth all the effort put into it. The following computer print-out is a sample of the finished format.

PAGE NO. 2

FISH COLLECTION RECORDS

COMMON NAME	GENUS-SPECIES	LOCATION/ TWP-RGE-SEC	CO. NO	QTY	DATE: YR-MO-DA	FAMILY CODE
CHANNEL CAT	I.PUNC	MISS.R/28-23-8	62	5	82-6-9	AJ
OZARK MADTOM	N.ALBA	FLAT C/RD#39-CATO,MO	00	20	83-9-2	AJ
STONECAT	N.FLAV	ROCK R/102-45-11	67	1	83-8-6	AJ

I had the computer organize the information by sorting on the genus-species abbreviations and the family codes. This arranges the records alphabetically in groups by families with the individual species also organized alphabetically within each family. I will use an example from the above sample to explain the organization of these records. The common name, stonecat is the one I prefer to use because it is understood by all the people I collect with. The abbreviation for the genus-species name Noturus flavus is used because of space limitations. The location begins with the name of the lake, river, or stream followed by the township, range, and section number. This narrows the site down to one square mile which still seems like a very large area, but collections are mainly confined to areas around bridge crossings and public accesses which are shown on most county maps. The county number 67 is the code for Rock County which serves as an index to the find the correct county map and eliminates guesswork. Collections made outside of Minnesota have a 00 county number. The number under the quantity column indicates the number of specimens taken at that site. The date 83-8-6 is not the generally used order, but means August 6, 1983. This is the only format the computer would accept when instructed to list records on a yearly basis. The letters AJ are the code for Siluriformes which include all members of the catfish family.

The program also has the feature to retrieve a specific kind
of information which is demonstrated in the two examples shown
below.

LIST FOR FAMILY="AV"

00189	MOTTLED SCULPIN	C.BAIR RUSH R/ELLWORTH,WI	00	5	82-6-1	AV
00190	BANDED SCULPIN	C.CARO CURRENT R/HWY.160,MO	00	3	83-9-2	AV
00191	SLIMY SCULPIN	C.COGN VALLEY C/28-20-9	82	4	82-7-4	AV

LIST FOR GENUS="P.OMIS"

00076

TROUT-PERCH

P.OMIS

KAWISHIWI

R/62-11-33

83-10-8

This feature has been a tremendous help to me in planning collection trips by eliminating the need to refer back to my disorganized notes which frequently caused me to miss some information I was trying to find. I now have control over how general or specific the information has to be by instructing the computer to search on any one of the seven columns. The first example found all the records for the sculpin family, and is more general in comparison to the second example which found the records for just one species.

I have found what I believe is another useful purpose for these records. The Minnesota Nongame Program strongly encourages interested residents to keep and submit observations of any nongame species for the programs data base. I am the only person at this time providing information on fish species, but I hope it will someday help insure the proper management and preservation of all species native to Minnesota.

This computer is my first attempt to make my records more manageable, and I am satisfied with the results. However, there is always room for improvement, and would welcome any comments or suggestions from NANFA members who may have undertaken a similar project.

Update
This article was written in 1984 and database software has made many improvements and is much more user friendly or as sometimes referred to as "idiot proof." I still use dBase III Plus which is light years ahead of dBase II, but when my free time permits, I hope to upgrade to either dBase for Windows or Access. My old database file (now teeming with over 25,000 records) is 100% compatible with either software.