Llanelli Naturalists Newsletter - December 1983
Richard Pryce

As I have received very few new records since my notes in the last Newsletter I will just write a few lines regarding progress in the "back-room".

Firstly let me apologise to those of you who have sent in records but to whom I have not yet replied. The time taken in entering all records into the master files far exceeds the time taken in actually collecting the records in the field.    I therefore have to make the choice of whether to do the filing before further records arrive or to reply to each letter received. Where possible I reply in person or by phone as this is less time consuming. This season has seen such a volume of new records that not only have I been unable to reply to many correspondents but I have also been unable to keep on top of the filing I therefore have a substantial backlog which will take a couple of months of dark winter evenings to clear.

Stemming from this, it makes my job much quicker and less arduous if records are grouped by tetrad, or grid reference, so that they can be copied en bloc directly to tetrad master cards.    My most time consuming task is raving to search the man every time a record is received which only states a named location and gives no Grid reference. It is also very time consuming to enter a list of records which are dotted singly all over the county.

I must confess that some of my time has been taken up recently in exploring the possibilities of handling the records with a cheap micro-computer. Cheap, I'm afraid, means limited storage capacity but I have been able to file the "local rarities", i.e. species occurring at three or fewer stations in the vice county together with details such as habitat, recorder, date last seen etc. The great advantage of this type of filing is for example the ease and speed by which the computer is able to search for and display a particular record, juggle with the order in which records appear, and subdivide into list of species depending on whether they occur in one, two or three stations. This type of file-handling would be possible for all the county's records for a mere £2,500 at present prices:, but the cost of the hardware is coming down as technology advances.

I think, however, that the most significant use of the machine so far is its ability to produce good duality, dot distribution maps, very quickly. To plot such maps with pen and ink is extremely laborious and virtually impossible to produce to a standard suitable for publication without the use of time consuming draughting techniques. Using the computer, I just enter the grid reference of the record to be plotted and up it comes on the screen!    It is also very simple to plot using different symbols: black squares, open squares, crosses, etc. at the touch of a button.

My 'immediate' resolve must be to put my new toy aside and concentrate on manually filing this year's outstanding records - please continue to send them in: