---

Crex

I have recently completed the biological recording module for my university course, and we discussed software at length. Chris has got it spot on. Really, the simplest format to use is a spreadsheet such as Excel, as most people already know how to operate them to a reasonable level. Their other advantage is that the data from a spreadsheet can almost always be transferred into almost any other system fairly simply (using delimited text or similar). The big disadvantage is not having a built in species list.

Recorder is by far the best of the custom systems in terms of the arrangement of data and the amount of information it can handle. However, you cannot buy it any more and the newer versions are called Recorder, but are not actually the same product. Also, if you have not used it every day for years you will really struggle with it.

MapMate is considered a very good alternative for the amateur/semi-professional and is easy to use. The deal with MapMate is that you must share your data - which is fine by most people, but you can end up with a load of useless unwanted data from others. I would enquire about Swedish species lists from MapMate - my impression is that they would quite like to take over the world and are keen to exploit any opportunity.;)

There is a very good simple mapping programme called DMapW which will take data from any programme that stores records (lots of fun).

I don't know anything about Mantis, but I will see what I can find out (might take me a while, as v busy at present). I work for an independent non-profit GI (geographical information) organisation so have contact with the software designers in some cases.