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What is the best way to manage a cave knowledge between several individuals?

I am a part of a rag-tag group of cavers, where each individual has their own personal list of leads and cave knowledge. We're trying to combine our knowledge all into one master list or database, but don't know what the best way is. Not all of us are computer savvy, so the ideal solution would be a simple and easy to use tool. We'd really like to store our data as a series of placemarks, if possible, viewable in Google Maps or Google Earth.

Any ideas? Thanks.

PM sent with ideas.

One thought because I know cavers...make sure you all know the rules regarding this information. It sounds silly, but you may want to write up a contract and have everyone that shares the information sign it.

I.E. All persons agree not to share the information outside the group without a majority vote. All persons agree to a monetary sum if this contract is broken.

Get everyone to get g-mail and use google drive. It works great for organizing, sharing and editing by for the whole group. Everyone can upload their documents (maps, pictures) and organize them into folders. It's all very simple, easy to use and free. My grotto uses google drive to share pictures after trips as well as maps, survey notes etc. It has up to 15 GB of space which unless you're putting up a lot of video should be plenty.

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions and ideas! I appreciate all the PMs too. Fortunately, we found a generous caver who has set up a web-interface database system for his own state survey, and he has offered to let us use his program for our project.

You all have made great points, and many of these ideas I plan on trying out as we start this new database. Thanks again!

You can try installing speleobase : http://www.scavalon.be/avalonnl/software/speleobase.htm
You can exchange data via import / export in different formats (including google earth)
I don't know if speleobase can run in a Multi-user set-up on a server. But try it I would say.

The FAQ - page : http://www.scavalon.be/avalonuk/softwar ... se_faq.htm

And the best part : Speleobase is free (made by a caver for cavers).

BR

Dagobert l'Ecluse ( Belgium)

Dagobert, I looked at Speleobase. It has some nice features, but it looks like you must have images stored on a local hard drive. Can the image links go to online images instead of hard drive links?

Maybe you should form a Pennsylvania Cave Survey.

rlboyce wrote:Dagobert, I looked at Speleobase. It has some nice features, but it looks like you must have images stored on a local hard drive. Can the image links go to online images instead of hard drive links?

I'll check it with the maker of speleobase But in the release notes the following is mentioned

v2.62 16/2/2005
===============
- Cave Detail, Documents links: you can now add a link to an Internet URL!
And when using Windows 2000 or XP, you will automatically see all recently
used Internet links as soon as you type in something in the edit control.



Dagobert

Dagobert, yes, I saw this in the release as well. When I opened the program, it appears that these hyperlinks are separate from the picture links, but maybe I just don't know how to use the software properly. Perhaps I can still find a way to make this work for me. Doing this manually in a spreadsheet is much more of a pain.

Bruce, I think PA already has a survey of sorts called the Pennsylvania Cave Conservancy. They are the ones who collect information on new caves. Maryland, on the other hand, has nothing like this... officially. : )

rlboyce wrote:Dagobert, yes, I saw this in the release as well. When I opened the program, it appears that these hyperlinks are separate from the picture links, but maybe I just don't know how to use the software properly. Perhaps I can still find a way to make this work for me. Doing this manually in a spreadsheet is much more of a pain.

Bruce, I think PA already has a survey of sorts called the Pennsylvania Cave Conservancy. They are the ones who collect information on new caves. Maryland, on the other hand, has nothing like this... officially. : )

I've checked with Paul de Bie (the maker of speleobase) and the feature for using URL's in the picture link is not supported (only in the document link). But you can always contact Paul directly with your questions about Speleobase. I'LL pm you his email adress.

Dagobert

Pennsylvania does have a cave database and it has recently gone through an overhaul updating the database structure itself. If you are caving in PA, one of the best way to stay up to date, and keep the database up to date, it to work with the local county stewards. General information on the Pennsylvania Cave Database can be found on the PCC website at:

http://caves.org/conservancy/pcc/Caves_PA.html