Known Issues and Frequently Asked Questions

Following is a list of currently known issues about The Birds of North America Online version 2.0:

• Expired Accounts and Renewals: If your account is expired you will not be able to view subscriber-only content in our site. You can check the status of your account or purchase a renewal by clicking on the yellow "myBNA" link that appears in the upper right corner of the screen after you have logged in. Alternately, you are free to navigate directly to the secure site here: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/mybna/MyAccount/Menu.do and login with your valid user name and password combination. From here you should be able to view your account status, renew online, and have immediate access to your account once you have re-subscribed.
  
• Search Terms: We have recently improved the functionality of the search engine in BNA.  Please read more about it in the News & Info section.  We are going to continue to make additional improvements to the Search in the future. 

Frequently Asked Questions

I am having problems accessing my account. Help!

What are the system requirements for BNA Online?

How do I play videos?

How do I play sounds?

I cannot seem to find a particular species online. Why?

I am having trouble printing a BNA species - the page doesn't format correctly on my printer. How come?

Can I still purchase hardcopy BNA accounts?

How do I cite the BNA Online datatbase or an individual species account from BNA Online?

I am a Lab Member and when I tried to subscribe I was told my username was already in use. When I logged on to BNA with my Lab username I was able to log on but told I needed to subscribe. Help!

What should I do if I find an error in a species account?

I am an AOU member and cannot access BNA through the AOU. Help!

Network Administrators:

Librarians:

1. I am having problems accessing my account. Help!

There are a few possibilities that may be causing you trouble if you are having difficulty accessing your account.

The first thing to check is that your user name and password are entered exactly as you registered it. User names and passwords are character and case specific. Thus, if your user name were "BirdLady1" and you entered "birdlady1" into the user name Sign In, BNA would not recognize the incorrect username as yours, because your registered user name had capital letters in it. Double check your registered account information against what you are entering to log in.

If you have forgotten your username or password, you can retrieve them by clicking the Sign In button in the upper right corner of the screen, and then clicking the "Forgot Password?" link next to the sign in box. Please note that if you have spam filters on your email account, you will need to allow emails from "bna@cornell.edu" to reach you in order to receive your user name and/or password from us by email. Additionally, please note that the password retrieval will only send your password to the email address you registered your subscription to--if you have switched email accounts since subscribing to BNA, you will need to provide your old email account (if you still have access to it) or contact us directly to be sent your user name/password combination.

Another common error in failed log in attempts is that you may have created multiple user accounts unknowingly when attempting to log in. It is possible that in frustrated attempts at guessing a user name or password, a subscriber created an entirely new user profile (or multiple user profiles). Only the account that you registered your payment with at the time of your subscription will be the account's user name and password that will allow you access to the full resource. If you think that you have created multiple user accounts and cannot remember which one is the "real" one, you can use the password retrieval system described above to retrieve it using the email you initially gave during your registration. If you lack this information, you can contact: Stacy Oborn, Managing Editor, at (607) 254-2477 or email her at bna@cornell.edu.

2. What are the system requirements for BNA Online?

We recommend you use the latest available version of Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari browsers. The minimum required browsers are Internet Explorer Version 6.0 or higher, Firefox 1.5 or higher, and Safari 2.0 or higher. Users must have cookies and JavaScript enabled for full functionality. BNA Online will run effectively via any internet connection but a broadband connection is required for accessing the audio and video.

To download the latest version of Internet Explorer, go here:
http://microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp

To download the latest version of Firefox, go here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US

3. How do I play videos?

BNA-Online uses streaming Quicktime files to deliver video. To view the videos you will need to have the free, Quicktime plug-in installed for your browser. We require QuickTime 7.0 or higher. Here is a link to download Quicktime.

Many videos do not have sound associated with them.

Note: A broadband (not dial-up) connection is required. If you are accessing these accounts via a dial-up connection and would like to view the videos, try accessing the accounts from a public library or university.

4. How do I play sounds?

BNA-Online uses streaming RealPlayer files to deliver audio. To play the sounds you will need to have the free, RealPlayer plug-in installed for your browser. Here is a link to download RealPlayer. For the free version of RealPlayer, look for the button in the upper right of the page that says "Free RealPlayer".

5. I cannot seem to find a particular species online. Why?

Can't find a species? Please keep in mind that the BNA series covers only the breeding birds of North America, a region defined as the 50 US states plus Canada. Birds that pass through this region, as vagrants or regular migrants, are not covered by BNA -- unless they are regular breeders in the US or Canada.

6. I am having trouble printing a BNA species - the page doesn't format correctly on my printer. How come?

The purpose of BNA being online is so that the content can be continually updated, therefore we discourage you from printing static copies, in case the information changes.

That being said, if you are printing from a PC computer you will need to adjust the margin settings in your Page/Print Options and/or reduce the printed document size to around 90% in order for the information to fit in one page width.

7. Can I still purchase hardcopy BNA accounts?

Yes you can but not from us! Buteo Books now owns the remaining inventory of the paper copies of the Birds of North America single species accounts. Please call Buteo Books at 800-722-2460 or email customerservice@buteobooks.com for more information.

8. How do I cite a species account from BNA Online?

To cite the BNA Online database as a whole, you can use one of two formats:

The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; Retrieved from The Birds of North America Online database: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/BNA/; AUG 2005.

or if you need to go with more standard author/date format:

Poole, A. (Editor). 2005. The Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/BNA/. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY.

When citing a species account, give the author's name(s) and initials and the year of publication in parentheses. If the publication has been revised, use the revised date. Otherwise, use the original print date. Next list the species name followed by the site information. You may add the date you accessed the information. See the examples below.

Haig, Susan M., and Elliott-Smith, E. (2004). Piping Plover. The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.) Ithaca: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; Retrieved November 2, 2004, from The Birds of North America Online database: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/BNA/account/Piping_Plover/

Marti, C. D. (1992) Barn Owl. The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.) Ithaca: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; Retrieved from The Birds of North America Online database: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/

Note: The Recommended Citation section of the accounts may contain the citation for the print version of BNA. Please use the format above instead.

9. I am a Lab Member and when I tried to subscribe I was told my username was already in use. When I logged on to BNA with my Lab username I was able to log on but told I needed to subscribe. Help!

The BNA Online username list is combined with Membership and other Lab programs that require a username and password. That way, you can keep the same login information across Lab projects. That is why you can login to BNA, but do not have full access, for there is no BNA subscription tied to your username yet.

At this time a Lab membership and a subscription to BNA Online are separate. If you would like to subscribe to BNA and keep the username you have for other Lab programs, just login to BNA, then click the My Account button at the top. You will have an option to purchase a subscription from there.

10. What should I do if I find an error in a species account?

The BNA editorial staff welcomes your input on errors in the species accounts. We will work to correct these as quickly as possible. Please email your corrigenda to Alan Poole, BNA editor.

It is our goal to have all BNA species accounts continually updated, with the initial emphasis on accounts published early in the series. We are establishing an online protocol to facilitate this process and we expect that to be in place in 9-12 months. If you have updates to contribute to a species account, please email Alan Poole, BNA editor.

11. I am an AOU member and cannot access BNA through the AOU. Help!

If you are a current, paid member of the AOU, you can access BNA through the AOU proxy server. You will need your AOU login ID and password, which is the following: User name: AUK + 00 + your OSNA number (the username is case specific, make sure you begin with "AUK00" plus your OSNA number), Password: your last name, with the first letter uppercase. You will enter this login information here, at the AOU/BNA proxy server. If you have forgotten or do not know your OSNA number, you can contact the AOU business center at business@osnabirds.org. Please DO NOT try to enter your AOU login/password on the BNA's main site page, you will NOT be able to login this way.

Institutional subscriptions give access to BNA based on registered institutional IP addresses. How do I make BNA available to members of my institution who work off-site with IP addresses that are not registered to the institution?

Institutions can used a restricted proxy server to give access to BNA.

Here are the settings that one institution used for their EZProxy server:

T Birds of North America Online
U http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/BNA/
Dj bna.birds.cornell.edu
Dj content.ornith.cornell.edu

If your institution runs a proxy server to give access to your off-site members, send us your proxy server configuration entry for BNA and we will post it here to help out other institutions.

Is a CD-ROM version of BNA Online available if I cancel my institution's subscription?

No. BNA Online is a constantly changing resource that is being developed (thanks to a National Science Foundation grant) as a tool for researchers and citizen scientists to share data collected on birds. Each species will have a growing community of supporters contributing the results of their research for all to use. It's not feasible to export information to a CD-ROM as it lacks the appropriate interface to be effectively used. Many of the images and some of the multimedia are not licensed by the Lab of Ornithology from the artists to allow derivative works to be created or to be ported to another medium. As a result, the Lab must decline requests to export data to a CD or to create a work that represents a snapshot in time. Users will have access for the duration of their subscription and are invited to renew.