Guide
How to read this site
What this site is
This site brings together the text, photographs, recordings, maps, places, and checklists recovered from the original CDs. Some information comes directly from the CDs; some has been organized by the new website; and some was added later during review. Labels show which is which.
This is a preservation and review project for The Land Birds of Southeast Brazil, an out-of-print CD-ROM collection. The deployment you are reading may be a testing or pre-release version of the site. It is not the final release.
Labels used on this site
Every recovered item, and every relationship between items, carries one of the following labels. These are the only labels used anywhere on the site; they are never collapsed into a single generic "reviewed" or "unreviewed" flag.
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From the original CD
This information comes directly from the original CD-ROM. It is shown as faithfully as possible, including errors, gaps, or unusual wording in the original.
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Organized by this website
The website created this grouping, page, or link by applying the same documented rule throughout the collection. It organizes the recovered material but does not add a new historical claim.
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Added after review
This information records a later decision or observation, such as a correction, family clarification, or identification made by listening again. It is kept separate from the original CD information.
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Possible — unresolved
This is a possible interpretation or connection, but it has not been confirmed.
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Sources disagree
Two or more records give different information. The website shows the disagreement instead of silently choosing one version.
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Not yet understood
The original information was recovered, but part of it cannot yet be interpreted or used safely. It is preserved exactly as found.
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Missing or incomplete
This part of the original material could not be recovered completely. The website says so rather than silently leaving it out.
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Added for this website
This explanation, index, label, or navigation aid was created for the new website. It was not part of the original CD.
The three releases (Disc 3, Disc 2, Disc 1 · 2011)
This work was published as three separate releases: the Disc 3 release first, the Disc 2 release later, and the Disc 1 release in 2011. Each release is a standalone historical state, and none of them is "the correct one" — in particular, the 2011 revision is not preferred just for being latest: its mastering accidentally cut 57 account sections short at exactly 512 characters' worth of text, so the earlier releases preserve text the final release lost.
Wherever the releases differ, this site shows each release's own version under its own label (for example Disc 1 (2011)) instead of merging them. That includes different English names for the same bird, account text edited or truncated in 2011, an account present in one release and absent in another, and recordings a release lists whose sound file shipped on a different disc.
Birds known only from release-level evidence — with no recovered species account in the accepted set — have their own pages, reachable from the alphabetical indexes and marked First in Disc 1 (2011) or Release-level evidence.
Referring to a page
Every page on this site ends with an "About this page" box, with a page reference -- the type of page, its address on this site, the specific item it covers, and its information status -- so that a remark about a page can always point back to exactly the right place, even on paper.
This site asks nothing of you and stores nothing about you. There is no form to fill in, no account, no server behind these pages, and nothing you do here is saved or sent anywhere.
More about how the material was preserved
Why historical and modern material stay visibly separate
Two kinds of material appear on this site, and they are never merged into one voice:
- Historical material -- text, names, coordinates, checklist entries, and images recovered from the original CD-ROM, decoded as faithfully as possible. Even where it is incomplete, garbled, or apparently wrong, it is shown as recovered, not corrected.
- Modern material -- explanations, navigation, status labels, this guide, and the notes box described below. These are added by the current preservation project to make the historical material usable. Modern material never replaces or silently rewrites the historical record, and is always labeled as added for this website where it appears as content in its own right.
A page can mix several of the labels above across its own sections -- for example, a species page's recovered account text, a possible locality connection, and a later listening observation can each carry a different label. Where that happens, each component is labeled on its own; one label is never applied to an entire page as if every part of it shared it.
Recovered vs. reconstructed vs. decided
From the original CD is what the original discs actually contained, decoded as literally as possible. Organized by this website structure (page routing, groupings, cross-references) is produced by fixed, documented rules applied to recovered content -- it organizes the material but does not add new historical claims. Added after review covers explicit, recorded choices (by the project owner, or from later listening/family review) that resolve or annotate an ambiguity; they are shown as a separate later layer, not folded into the historical record itself.
Accepted decisions vs. possible material vs. disagreeing sources vs. not-yet-understood evidence
Some material is settled (added after review); some is a possible interpretation that has not been confirmed; some has two or more sources that disagree with each other; and some cannot currently be interpreted or placed at all. All of these are shown, clearly labeled, because omitting uncertain material would misrepresent how much of the historical record is actually settled. None of them is ever presented as if it were an accepted historical fact.
Missing or incomplete recovery
Where a category of historical content could not be recovered, or was only partly recovered, the site says so explicitly (labeled missing or incomplete) rather than silently leaving the category out.
The page reference, in detail
Every page on this site ends with an "About this page" box. It shows a page reference -- the type of page, its address on this site, the specific item it covers, and its information status -- so that a remark about a page can always point back to exactly the right place, even on paper. Pages that group several separate records give each individual record its own smaller reference as well.
Use your browser's print function (Cmd+P on a Mac, Ctrl+P on Windows/Linux) to print a page or save it as a PDF. The printed or saved page includes the page title, its page reference, and the relevant information-status explanation. Navigation links and other on-screen-only controls are hidden from the printed output so the page prints cleanly.
Where to find unsettled material
Most disagreeing, not-yet-understood, or possible material is shown directly on the page it concerns (a species page, a locality page, a checklist page, and so on). Some recovered records cannot safely be attached to one specific existing page without inventing a relationship the source data does not support; those are collected, still individually labeled and referenced, on the unresolved evidence page instead of being left out.
Nothing collected there has been settled. It is published unresolved, and none of it has been quietly decided in order to publish it.