We just started working on a new package finch - for reading/parsing/etc. Darwin Core Archive files. E.g. you can get these file types from GBIF when you download data through their web interface. The Darwin Core page is at http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/index.htm
The package name is a play on Darwin in Darwin Core Archive and Darwin’s finches
The package is at https://github.com/ropensci/finch
Thoughts? Feedback? Curious about high level stuff here - feedback on functions/bugs, etc. should go to the repo itself.
One idea is we could import this package in rgbif to help users read data dumps from GBIF into R instead of reinventing the wheel each time.