I hadn’t intentionally posed a Google-proof question. The full book-jacket blurb is below. That was the rather sparse info offered about James Clements in the first edition of his checklist in 1974, 50 years ago. In
the following year, James was awarded his doctorate, the thesis being his checklist. 20 years later, after further editions of the book checklist, Canberra ornithologist Simon Bennett got James’ permission to use the checklist for a digital creation ‘Birdinfo’
that was used by several Canberra birders for their world lists. After James died in 2005, rights to the checklist passed to Cornell Lab, which issued the final book edition, the 6th, in 2007. Subsequently annual updates were published online. Simon ceased
to support Birdinfo at about that time, leading to complaints by keen recorders about lack of a digital recording facility. However Cornell Lab soon filled the gap, extending its eBird to worldwide coverage, using the Clements taxonomy (and the Clements name,
for one of the main world checklists), updated each year. You will know the story from there. The Clements list is to be merged into the coming IOU unified global list. I assume eBird will follow the IOU list. Whether the name of James Clements continues
to be used in some way we shall wait to see.
