> My question is: if you need to check for a shell (example: Strombus
> ochroglottis), how do you search for it in your magazines/articles? One by
> one? Do you keep a kind of title database? If positive, how do you do it?

Many questions posted to Conch-L concern the identifying of specimens from
literature. Just the other day, someone was asking for a decision between
two different representations of a Kobelt species in various books - which
one was correct?
The hallmark of a serious collector is the level to which they seek out
relevant literature. The absolute ideal is for every specimen to be
identified from the primary literature - the original description - or from
a figure of the type. This is not always even possible; many species have
no identifiable type, and many types have not been figured since the
original description. This most often the case with species published
before 1860, but the problem was by no means unknown after that either.
With over 100,000 readily-collectible species in the Mollusca and over a
hundred regularly-published molluscan journals, it is obvious that no-one
who is not a retired millionaire will be able to build up a library from
which any specimen they receive can be definitively identified. How much
harder this task would be, then, for the average collector who buys
specimens from dealers (many of whom have no greater grasp of the
literature than their customers, and rely as heavily on dog-eared copies of
Abbot's Compendium and their own imaginations as anyone else) or collects
shells themselves in an area for which no comprehensive guide to the
Mollusca has yet been written?
There is only one answer : to specialise in a particular family or genus.
This reduces the volume of literature needed to a few standard works plus
articles published on that particular group. How to find the latter? Well,
here's where it might be necessary to go outside the house. If you are a
citizen of the USA, any European country or anywhere else with a scientific
establishment worth the name, your country will have maintained (using your
money, mind you) a library of scientific literature. In the USA these are
everywhere; most universities have good libraries, as do many state capitals.
How does one go about collecting the literature on a particular family? In
the aforementioned library, they should have the Zoological Record. The bit
which is of interest to us is section 9, the Mollusca. Starting at the
latest year, look through the systematic index and pick out the family
which you are studying. There you will find listed every article on that
family published in that year (and maybe some earlier ones which have been
listed late). Photocopy this section and the relevant bibliographical
entries, then do the same for the year before that and so on. In most
families, if you get the last 50 years' worth (the Zoological Record has
been going since 1870) you will have a listing of the vast majority of the
relevant literature in that group, along with notes on the taxonomical acts
contained in it (new species, transfer of species to different genera, new
classifications and so on). Armed with this, and a few evenings spent
reading through it, you will be able to form a picture of the situation in
that group - who the main current authors (and authorities) are, how stable
the group is (two major revisions in thirty years suggests a lot of
argument, for example).
Having thus got a handle on what is out there, it is then necessary to
target a few works on the list which seem like they will be of use to you.
Obviously, if you are after pictures, then those works with plates and
figures come first; if you want an overview of the group then look for
Revisions or Systematic Reviews.
Now comes the tedious part : writing to the various authors (most of whom,
if not actually dead, can be sought out via the Internet very easily) and
asking them for reprints of their work. Most authors (not all...) are happy
to oblige; many sit in offices whose interior space is shrinking rapidly
due to mountains of unclaimed reprints.
The same library should have at least some of the Great Works - Reeve,
Sowerby, Martini and Chemnitz and so on. Sadly, institutional paranoia on
the one hand and the real danger of theft on the other have conspired to
make access to these works harder for the layman in recent years, but it is
not too difficult to prove your bona fides to a librarian and get to see
them. What you really want are photocopies of the figures in your pet
group; many libraries keep monochrome copies of some of the really ancient,
fragile works from which acceptable xeroxes can be made. Add these to your
library and you are really getting somewhere. Subscribe to the lists of the
various book- and reprint dealers - Naturama, Wheldon and Wesley, R. E.
Petit and so on - and spend a little on some of the less
extortionately-priced books. 'Collectors - they'll spend a thousand bucks
on a shell but won't spend ten bucks on a shell book' as one dealer of my
acquaintance laments. In the example I gave above (from an actual Conch-L
thread), the species in question was figured originally. Find out where
(Martini and Chemnitz, in this case) and for the cost of a stamp and a
little politeness you could have a xerox of the original figure on your desk.

A useful rule for identifying specimens from pictures : treat all specimens
as unidentified or provisionally identified until you have seen a picture
of the type. Just because this book shows a picture with this name under it
does not make that a correct identification! In my own field, the Cones,
some of the standard books are full of misidentifications, and the number
of spurious 'species' is staggering. This is what makes type figures such
as those reproduced by Kohn in his magnificent 'Chronological Taxonomy' so
valuable. Make a note on each label of the book or paper you used to make
the identification, or whether this is an 'inherited' identification from a
dealer or colleague. Create a special mark to show when you have made an
identification from the primary literature. Apart from anything else, each
new 'checked with the type' mark vastly increases the scientific value of
your collection.

As you can see from all the above, identifying your specimens is not just a
matter of hauling Abbot off the shelf and trying to get a good match. The
pursuit of type figures is fascinating detective work, in the course of
which you will meet and get to know the people who really understand the
group you have chosen, many of whom may become firm friends. Your diligence
in identifying specimens and building up your library will benefit them
too, and pro-amateur relationships like this, built up over the years, are
the lifeblood of the biological sciences.

Of course, if you don't mind being wrong then you can keep a collection of
ten thousand specimens in a hundred families, all gems, which have cost you
thousands of dollars, and not worry about it; but you may find that some
species are called different things by different people....