Butterflies North and South

http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Butterflies/english/faq/index.html

Butterflies North and South
The Canadian Museum of Nature co-sponsors along with The Provincial Museum of Alberta, Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History, Museo La Salle, and the Insectarium de Montréal this virtual butterfly exhibit. It seems to be based on a book, The Butterflies of Canada.. The site provides links to their Gallery, Gardening, Conservation, Questions and answers, Amateur Corner, Glossary, Teachers and Games. There is a wonderful list of additional links to Clubs/Associations/Federations, Conservation, Gardening, General, Institutions, Monarch Butterfly, Moth, Products and Services, Resources as well as a page of credits and acknowledgements.The site was established in 1999 and doesn't seem to have had any updates since.

The Gallery of photographs is quite small. The links on each page seem to take you to whatever page you want easily. The only metadata provided is the name of the photographer along with a description of the butterfly, no real data about the photo itself. It would be nice to have additional information such as the location of the photograph, the time of year, along with some features to zoom in for a closer look, and to be able to see the butterfly from all sides.

Collection Principles: There is an expansive bibliography and credits page providing acknowledgement, but the only mention of a collection policy was a statement that the images and information could not be reproduced. I would think that the site would maintains the same collection policy as the museum itself or one of the other museums, but nothing is mentioned. The web site does state in the acknowledgements, the following disclaimer “We owe many aspects of the Canadian section of the Web site to the work by Ross Layberry, Peter Hall and Don Lafontaine, notably their recent book, The Butterflies of Canada. In addition, Peter Hall and Don Lafontaine, of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, provided us with photographs and editorial content. In creating this site, we never intended to produce a Web version of this authoritative book, but rather to provide an introduction to Canadian Lepidoptera, for both butterfly lovers and teachers. A pilot project is under way to develop an online database on Canadian Lepidoptera. When this is completed, a link to the site will be provided.”
The intended audience would be nature lovers, gardeners, butterfly enthusiast, butterfly photographers as well as young school children.