- 5 
Agriculture. In evaluating this catalog for publication, the Pub¬ 
lication Committee of the Agricultural Research Service, USDA, es¬ 
timated that the total cost would be about $100,000 if the catalog 
were to be published in a formal way. The Committee approved a 
pilot project in which all of the data would be committed initial¬ 
ly to computer memory, with later programs to be prepared so that 
camera-ready copy could be computer-generated. Published versions 
of the catalog could then be printed by offset, and at the same 
time the data could be kept permanently in the computer file for 
additions and other updating procedures; for producing subsequent¬ 
ly updated versions of the printed catalog ? and for querying by 
remote terminals, batch processing, etc. The pilot project will 
produce the immediate obj ective of a printed catalog of one or two 
families to test cost-effectiveness, and a long range obj ective of 
testing maintenance and file query capabilities. The entire 
effort to automate this data has been placed in the hands of the 
Data Systems Application Division (DSA), Agricultural Research 
Service * Thus far, two beetle families have been completely cata¬ 
loged—the Anobiidae by Richard White and the Dermestidae by John 
Kingsolver. The input-correction program has been completed and 
is ready for testing» The maintenance and query programs are yet 
to be written. Input will be by MT/ST tape; and at the present 
writing the first such tape, including possibly half of one of the 
families, is being produced. 
A similar project has been planned by specialists in the Hy- 
menoptera (bees, wasps, ants), consisting of a catalog of the Hy- 
menoptera of North America, a new version of an older catalog and 
its supplements. This catalog will be published as a single vol¬ 
ume rather than family by family, and currently plans are being 
made to produce it by computer-generated cold copy as in the case 
of the Coleoptera catalog• The printed versions of the se two cat¬ 
alogs will follow different formats, dictated in part by the cir¬ 
cumstances of the scientists who will generate the data. Even 
more recently, specialists in the Lepidoptera (butterflies and 
moths) have expressed their interest in these efforts. Although 
they are not free to mount a major cataloging effort due to other 
commitments, their data can be accomodated with only minor adjust¬ 
ments. Because the proposed system lends itself admirably to the 
storage of small bits and pieces of catalog information, the cur¬ 
rent research produced by the lepidopterists can be used as source 
material and adapted to the catalog mode. 
Because the four major orders of insects (Diptera, Coleoptera, 
Lepidoptera, and Hymenoptera) are involved in this project, a means 
to initiate the stockpiling of current data for at least three- 
fourths of all insect species is within reach. Because insects 
make up four-fifths of all living animals, the way will be opened 
toward the establishment of an automated world inventory of living 
things.--(Abstracted from a statement by Richard H. Foote). 
