International Union of Biological Sciences

Taxonomic Databases Working Group

Some dates:

The first meeting of the Taxonomic Databases Working Group was held at the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques in Geneva, from 28th to 30th September, 1985.

According to the first newsletter, published in September 1988, TDWG was "established by the major plant institutions (e.g. de Geneve Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Missouri Botanical Garden), several international taxonomic database projects (ESFDS, ILDIS), established database vendors (BIOSIS and CABI), and related botanical databases (e.g. IUCN- Conservation Monitoring Centre). The first meeting was convened by the late Prof. Boquet at the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques in Geneva with Prof. Heywood's encouragement: it provided a stimulating discussion amongst a dozen or so participants, punctuated by the elegant hospitality of Prof. Bocquet and colleagues. At the first meeting in 1985 we did little more than catalogue the needs for a community of taxonomic databases for elements of standardisation and means for data exchange. But as the work progressed very many other individuals and organisations have joined in - both in their desire to see the difficult tasks completed, and in their desire to use TDWG as a valuable forum in its own right to find out what others are doing or to plan collaboration with others of like mind."

There have been a few names changes, but the TDWG "acronym" has survived:

In 1986, the name was changed to Taxonomic Databases Working Group for Plant Sciences.

At the Edinburgh meeting in 1987, it was decided to explore the possibilities for affiliation to both the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) and the International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT). The first of these came to fruition - TDWG was formally accepted as a Commission of IUBS at its 23^rd General Assembly (16-24 October 1988).

In 1988, the name was changed again, to the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases for Plant Sciences.

In 1994, the Work Group was given the role by the IUBS to encompass taxonomic databases in general and subsequently changed its name once more, dropping the "for Plant Sciences" portion to become the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases.