4 
INFORMATION HANDLING 
IN THE LIFE 
SCIENCES 
The Council on Biological 
ion of Biology and Agriculture 
lished a booklet with the titl 
copies of it are available on 
from MUDPIE (Division of Repti 
of Natural History, Wash., D. 
Sciences Informa 
, National Resear 
e above in Februa 
a first come firs 
les and Amphibian 
C. 20560). 
tio 
n 
of 
the 
Divis- 
ch 
Counc 
il. 
pub- 
ry, 
1970 
• 
A few 
t s 
e 
rved 
basis 
s, 
N 
a tio 
nal 
Museum 
DIRECTORY OF COMPUTER PROGRAMS 
Science Associates/International, Inc., 2 3 East 2 6 th St., 
New York NY 10010, has announced the first issue of their new 
"COMPUTER PROGRAMS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (CPST)", which will 
appear in the first quarter of 1971. It is designed to "provide 
a much-needed bridge between the computer specialist and the 
scientist seeking a computer solution to a problem." The cost 
of the publication is going to make that bridge a tough one to 
cross, however. The annual subscription for four issues is 
$95.00 (reduced to $65.00 if you submitted a program for inclu¬ 
sion ). I wi11 try to obtain an early copy and see how much there 
is of interest to MUDPIEJAP. 
NOTE CONCERNING ENCLOSED REPRINTS 
I am enclosing with this issue of MUDPIE two recent publi¬ 
cations on computer use in museum work. Please either pass them 
on to someone who can use them or send them back to me if you do 
not want them yourself. The paper on a generalized data format 
is a beginning, we hope, of a way for all of us to share taxonom¬ 
ic information through common storage. Programs in both BASIC 
and Fortran have been prepared to permit the use of this standard 
matrix by taxonomists. The one in BASIC is available from me, 
and Larry Morse, Dept. of Biology, Harvard, can provide the one 
in Fortran. MUDPIE no 9, p. 3, gives a progr am package set up 
for use with this matrix. We would all be glad to give any help 
we can to interested people. 
The second paper, in the Smithsonian Contributions to 
Zoology, is designed to make an introduction into time-shared 
computing practically painless for the complete novice--which 
seems to be the characteristic nature of museum people in general. 
I f one has become accustomed to using S impson e_t al ♦ in his 
work the little collection of programs should facilitate his 
adapting to the computer in the immediate future. I would be 
most interested in any responses you might note concerning this 
collection.--JAP. 
