[Taxacom] Bibliographical confusion between BHL and Wiley

Tue Oct 22 15:21:36 CDT 2013

All well and good, except for automated DOI creation from article metadata, which is a very useful way of linking using DOIs, and something I use extensively on Wikispecies. It saves having to hard write both DOI and article metadata, so, for example, {{zootaxa|2013|3722|3|301|316|1}} on Wikispecies results automatically in the following: 

 Zootaxa, 3722(3): 301-316. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.3722.3.1

From: Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> 
Cc: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>; Taxa com <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, 22 October 2013 9:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Bibliographical confusion between BHL and Wiley

Hi Stephen, 

No, it doesn't. It is an "opaque identifier", which means you ascribe meaning to the DOI string at your peril. 

You could read the DOI  "10.1111/een.1837.2.issue-1"  as being the journal for the  year 1837, volume 2, issue 1, which is obviously how Wiley generated the string "een.1837.2.issue-1", but this doesn't mean that if we discover the metadata is wrong the DOI itself is "wrong". In the same way, I guess the string "een" refers to the journal "Ecological Entomology", which Wiley regards as the current name of this journal (not surprisingly it is struggling with the somewhat complicated history of the journal). But this doesn't mean the DOI is wrong.

It may well be confusing, but only if you treat the DOI as informative. Often times this works fine, but it is not by design. If the publisher discovers an error in the metadata, and they've used that to create the DOI string, then the DOI string does not change (unlike in biological taxonomy where we change the identifier - the taxon name -   for example, when moving a species to a new genus). Some publishers avoid this possible source of confusion by making the DOI hard to interpret (e.g., a number, a non-obvious string, etc.). The most extreme variant of this is something like a UUID, which is (almost) impossible to invest with meaning, and also rather ugly.

There is a tradeoff between making an identifier human-friendly, and avoiding people investing a particular string with meaning. DOIs may look meaningful, and often times the inference you make may be correct, but this is not guaranteed.

Regards

Rod 

On 22 Oct 2013, at 08:40, Stephen Thorpe wrote:

Except that the DOI itself encodes the metadata, so there will be a mismatch (as opposed to an arbitrary DOI), i.e. some DOIs containing 1837 are actually articles from the 1836 volume. This may cause confusion!
>
>
>
>From: Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>
>To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> 
>Cc: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>; Taxa com <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
>Sent: Tuesday, 22 October 2013 8:33 PM
>Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Bibliographical confusion between BHL and Wiley
>
>
>
>Hi Stephen, 
>
>
>Yes, metadata errors happen. But this is an advantage of DOIs in the sense that if we cite them, the link to the actual document is retained, regardless of errors in the metadata. In the same way, if your bank has your name incorrectly spelt  but you can still access your bank account using the account number, then the thing that matters (your access to your money) is still there. It might hinder discoverability ("no, it's Stephen with a 'ph'") but the link remains intact.
>
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>Regards
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>Rod
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>On 22 Oct 2013, at 07:57, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
>
>It appears that Wiley has messed up its metadata, which is unfortunate since the registered DOIs encode the incorrect metadata! At least 2 issues are affected..
>> 
>>Stephen
>>
>>From: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>
>>To: 'Stephen Thorpe' <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; Taxa com <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
>>Sent: Tuesday, 22 October 2013 7:40 PM
>>Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Bibliographical confusion between BHL and Wiley
>>
>>
>>If the binders of the journal at the Smithsonian got the correct title page (http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13496974) associated with the associated parts the scanning of the object at BHL has to be correct - this could be confirmed if other Libraries who hold this item have the same title page + ToC.
>>
>>Cannot check what Wiley has, behind a paywall.
>>
>>Paul
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
>>Sent: 21 October 2013 23:10
>>To: Taxa com
>>Subject: [Taxacom] Bibliographical confusion between BHL and Wiley
>>
>>What is going on here, can anyone tell me? What BHL has as Transactions of the Entomological Society of London vol. 1 part 1 (1836) (http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13496972), Wiley has as vol. 2 part 1 (1837) (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/een.1837.2.issue-1/issuetoc)! Wtf!
>> 
>>This is a good example, by the way, of a data confusion!
>> 
>>Stephen
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>>Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.
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>
>---------------------------------------------------------
>Roderic Page
>Professor of Taxonomy
>Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
>College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
>Graham Kerr Building
>University of Glasgow
>Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>
>Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
>Tel: +44 141 330 4778
>Fax: +44 141 330 2792
>Skype: rdmpage
>Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rdmpage
>LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rdmpage
>Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
>Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderic_D._M._Page
>Citations: http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=4Z5WABAAAAAJ
>ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7101-9767
>
>
>

---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Tel: +44 141 330 4778
Fax: +44 141 330 2792
Skype: rdmpage
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rdmpage
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rdmpage
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderic_D._M._Page
Citations: http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=4Z5WABAAAAAJ
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7101-9767