I have, of late, been swamped with requests (80+) for various articles and
papers that relate to various ferret issues.  I have also been lately asked
to review several ferret books and papers (and a web site), which resulted
in extensive research on my part to obtain numerous hard-to-find references
to either provide information, or to check quotes and inferences.  Add this
to my own extensive collection of ferret-related bibliographic references,
and you have one really great pile of stuff.
 
Much of this stuff is extremely hard to obtain, including foreign and
obscure references.  Other stuff is some of the latest cutting edge
information on ferrets.  Much of the material is not specifically geared
towards ferrets, but touches on their--or mustelid--natural history or
physiology.  Some is geared towards carnivores in general, such as their
anatomy or ecology.  The collection is extremely broad AND deep.  AND, I
am working hard to improve the depth and breadth of the material, which
includes attempts to collect material that has thus far escaped my
attention OR has proven difficult to obtain.
 
The bottom line is, without attempting to do so, I might have one of the
best privately-owned ferret-related reference collections in the USA.  At
the moment, I am cataloging and annotating the material in my spare time.
I am unaware when the cataloging will be complete; probably not soon.
However, since the material is stored in file cabinets, it is not hard to
find.  I plan on scanning each paper and storing on CDs as jpgs and text
files for ease of reference when I have time; maybe over Christmas break.
 
Such a collection, if unused, is a waste of effort and money.  I *DO* use
it extensively (like for the Q-N-As), but even one person-use is somewhat
wasteful.  What I want to do is open the reference collection to use by
other ferret people.  To do so, I have been thinking about forming a very
loose confederation of ferret geeks who wish access to the collection, as
well as who might wish to contribute towards improving it.  Sort of a
centralized collection of ferret-related research papers and related
articles that could be accessed by people to answer specific questions or
attack specific anti-ferret views.
 
Basically, (and this is VERY basic because I am sure it will change as
details are worked out), about 4 times a year, I will email to the ferret
geek membership an up-to-date bibliographic reference of material in my
possession.  People who have or know of material NOT on the list can send
in the reference.  When people need a specific article, it can either be
faxed, snail mailed, or emailed as text or jpeg to the person in need.
When people have something I don't have, they can send it to me to put in
the collection for others to use as needed.  This is a sort of "you help
me, I help you club" for people who have occasional need to access such a
list, or do not have the ability to obtain specific references.
 
I realize that because of the extensive nature of my collection, there may
not be a lot of stuff other people can contribute, but thats ok.  I am not
trying to BUILD a reference collection (I already have), but it would be
nice to fill in what ever gaps that might exist.  This would usually be
local newspaper articles, or limited access papers of low distribution.
Occasionally, someone may be asked to look through old newspapers, or copy
something from a local library.  I would like to add to the collection
access to ferret club newsletters and the like, so if I read a specific
quote, I can easily gain access to the original material to evaluate it.
 
How can this be helpful to me?  Suppose someone askes me to look at an
article attacking ferrets and it quotes a specific reference not in my
collection.  I could ask if one of my fellow ferret geeks has the reference
or can obtain it (assuming it is locally unavailable).  The reference could
then be scaned in and send as text or jpgs, faxed or just snail mailed.
This would save considerable time and effort in answering questions, which
would allow me to answer more of them, and faster.
 
How can this be helpful to you?  Suppose someone is working to make ferrets
illegal in your town and you need specific references to argue against
their points.  You would have an annotated bibliography to reference, and
you could request a specific paper be snail mailed, emailed or faxed to you
(assuming it is locally unavailable or too obscure to obtain readily).
 
How would this work?  This is subject to revision, but I think any request
for information would be answered with the bibliographic list, which they
could look through and obtain specific references on their own.  People
who contribute (or are willing to contribute if requested) can ask for a
limited number of references to be sent to them.  Anyone who has read a
reference can contribute a short (few lines or so) comment which would be
added to the specific reference to annotate it.  I understand I will have a
lot more requests for copies of references than will be sent to me, but
that's ok as long as the requests don't get out of hand.  If it does, I
might have to invent a triage system, or limit requests, but will only do
that if it is necessary.
 
If you want to become fellow ferret geek, just email me with "FELLOW FERRET
GEEK!" in the subject line.
 
Bob C and 16 MO' Ferret Geeks of Reference
[Posted in FML issue 2776]