Distributing Lepidopso - A test case for sharing virtual museums and other data

Most private and institutionalised museums have unpublished information, data and unworked specimens in their possession. Traditionally access to the above was restricted to persons who visited the museum and therefore a form of control was in hand to minimise plagiarism, unauthorised use of data and to ensure that proper acknowledgement was given to the originators of the information, data and specimens. The formal publication of information and data is the traditional method used to regulate the above issues. The problem with the above system was that information and many data were very much difficult to extract resulting in costly travelling for anyone wanting to gather basic information and data on a particular group of organisms he or she may be working on. This resulted in the slow progress of value-added science based on these data, information and specimens.