E-mail from Queen's University Belfast [2010-05-11]

Dear Dr. Bennett,
> Clare Jamison tells me that "all electronic files on tree-ring data,
> held by the University, have now been disclosed" and requested that I
> contact you if I wanted any clarifications on that. Following are two
> issues that I would appreciate being clarified.
> First, there were previously about 9000 files on the web site. There are
> now about 9500 links on the main page
> <http://chrono.qub.ac.uk/Resources/dendro_data/dendro.html>, but the 500
> new links do not point to any data. As an example, a newly-added link is
> for Q10910; clicking on that link evokes "File Not Found".

Apologies: a technical reason that I will not bore you with. The correct
files are transferring as we speak. Please let me know if you see any
other problems.

> Second, QUB has previously stated that it had measurements on about
> 11000 tree samples. Will you explain the reasons for there apparently
> being 1500 tree samples whose measurements are not stored electronically?

11000 was a rough estimate based on the number of Q numbers allocated.
Some of those Q numbers have not generated electronic files because:

1. Some projects were pre-allocated a range of numbers, but only some of
the range was needed;

2. Some tree sections were allocated numbers, but never measured;

3. Some projects (e.g. PhD projects) never returned their measurements
in an electronic form;

4. Two corrupt files.

On the other hand, we were aware that there were 'extra' data, in the
form of multiple measurements from the same sample (e.g. QxxxxA, QxxxxB,
etc), and data that we held but had not measured (pretty much anything
not 'Qxxxx'). The final balance, upto the end of last week, is the ca
9500 files now available.

--
Prof. K.D. Bennett
Head of School: Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology
Queen's University Belfast
Belfast BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK