Little Creatures that Run the World: Bringing Ants to a Wider Audience

Abstract

Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are among the most ubiquitous and successful creatures on earth. They are the subject of research by ant biologists worldwide, and with over 8,800 identified species, access to quality information is important for those researchers. AntWiki (http://www.antwiki.org/) was created originally as an online listing of all ant taxonomists and their papers, and librarians have assisted the project by finding, scanning, and uploading articles and contributing to a page on Human Culture and Ants.

KEYWORDS:

• Formicidae
• ants
• Hymenoptera
• Antwiki
• collaboration
• wikis
• taxonomies
• systematics

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks are due of course to all the GSLIS interns. In order of appearance they were: Chorong Lee, Kristin Parker, Christopher Glass, Marie Hviding, and Katherine Bartolomea.

Thanks also to the ant biologists at Harvard, Gary Alpert, David Lubertazzi, and Stefan Cover, and to all the EML staff members who made the interns welcome and shared their insights.