Information about the BRERC Meta-Data List

The list of BRERC meta-data is sourced from our internal meta-database, which is essentially a working tool for BRERC purposes.

Meta-data is information about data, similar to the contents list of a book.  BRERC uses MetaTagger as its meta-database.

The database continues to be updated and the list should not be considered complete nor reflective of all of the BRERC data holdings.

This list was produced on 23rd September 2004.

Because it is sourced from an internal working tool some of the information may not make obvious sense to others.  The actual meta-database contains many more fields that are not shown here.  In addition we have removed approximately 900 cross-reference entries from this list, since these only refer to our in-house filing systems.

The National Biodiversity Network (NBN) and English Nature provided some funds for BRERC to evaluate MetaTagger on their behalf, and some additional funds for BRERC to begin entering information as part of the South West NBN Pilot Project.   This funding enabled BRERC to make recommendations about MetaTagger and to enter approximately 850 entries for submission to the NBN Index.  Subsequently BRERC has amended these and have continued to add more, so that we now have over 4000 entries.

BRERC has a strict policy to not publish inappropriate personal information, names and addresses.  We have screened this list prior to making it available, but If you should discover any examples of this type of information please contact BRERC and we will remove it immediately.

Explanation of the Fields:

ID_NO
Unique reference number for each entry
TITLE
Title of the document, data set or archive.  This is a BRERC assigned title and not necessarily the actual title.
ABSTRACT
Brief description of the information, assigned by BRERC
PURPOSE
Reason for the survey, document, report, assigned by BRERC
DOC_NO
Internal BRERC Document number
10km_Square
The 10 kilometre grid square the information refers to.  This field can be used to search for information by the 10 kilometre grid square.
Year
Year the information refers to (generally the last relevant year is entered here).  This field can be used to search for information by the year

Glossary for some terms used in the list:

BLISS
Biological Location Information Site System.  Refers to one of our paper filing systems for wildlife information.  The accompanying codes are internal filing codes for this system.

BREXT
BRERC External document.  Refers to reports BRERC has produced for external clients.  This filing system has been superceded and therefore BREXT relates to a historic filing system.  The accompanying codes are internal filing codes for this system.

BRERC pub.
BRERC publication. The accompanying codes are internal filing codes for this system.