[Taxacom] Species Cite: linking scientific names to publications and taxonomists

[Roderic Page]

Hi Geoff,

Apologies for the mischaracterisation, you can probably tell I’m not a major WoRMS user, although I do occasionally spend time there tracking down names of freshwater and terrestrial molluscs.

Yes, WoRMS includes DOIs and links. I don’t have a full copy of the WoRMS references, but based on what I have (~150,000) around 10% of references have a DOI, and less than 5% are linked to BHL. 

These numbers give us a sense of the scale of the task, given that WoRMS has an active community of editors (I’m guessing WoRMS might claim to have the largest community of editors among taxonomic databases?). So much of the biodiversity literature across our databases remains unconnected and undigitised, and the work of making those connections is not fun (although strangely satisfying).

I’m focussing my editing efforts on Wikidata. I note that Wikidata has a property for WoRMS sources which enables references in Wikidata to be linked to WoRMS, so there is a mechanism in place to link records in the two projects. My expectation is that these links will uncover information in both sources that the other wasn’t aware of.

Regards,

Rod


> On 3 Aug 2021, at 03:28, Geoff Read via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Without getting too excited about the misrepresentation of WoRMS
> capability, this below isn't true Rod.
> 
> I, and others, spend hundreds of hours every year adding DOI and BHL links
> for the literature in WoRMS, especially original descriptions.  The aim is
> the links should appear on every species page, and the descriptions are a
> click away (for open access work). Maybe coverage is patchy according to
> phyla (the task for Mollusca is immense), but the intention and the
> capacity to deliver it is there.
> 
> It's often faster & more convenient for me to click on the WoRMS link to
> check something quickly rather than load up the pdf from my own pc.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Geoff Read (Annelida editor)
> 
> On Mon, August 2, 2021 9:54 pm, Roderic Page via Taxacom wrote:
>> Hi Lena,
>> 
>> WoRMS is great, and is something that I plan to add to Species-Cite in the
>> future.
>> 
>> From my perspective the thing WoRMS lacks is links to external identifiers
>> for the literature (e.g., DOIs, etc.). This means that the literature is
>> essentially in a database-specific silo 9this is true of most taxonomic
>> databases). Now, for WoRMS users that may be just fine, the database meets
>> their needs, the names and citations they are after are there.
>> 
>> I’d like things to be less siloed such that, for example, I can go from
>> a name in WoRMS to an external identifier for the literature,  to the
>> taxonomists who did the work, and the full text for the paper. And I’d
>> like to do that all in one place.
>> 
>> I think for anyone aggregating data the challenge is to deliver value
>> above and beyond what individual databases can do, otherwise there is
>> little point in aggregating the data in the first place. So I guess the
>> challenge would be to see if aggregating data from WoRMS can create
>> something that adds value on top of what WoRMS itself offers. And of
>> course, any such value would be available to WoRMS to incorporate if the
>> WoRMS editors felt it added something to their database.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Rod
>> 
>> 
>> On 2 Aug 2021, at 10:37, Elena Kupriyanova
>> <Elena.Kupriyanova at Australian.Museum<mailto:Elena.Kupriyanova at Australian.Museum>>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear colleagues,
>> 
>> I am not talking about it for a simple reason -  I did not want to mention
>> that for marine species we already have WoRMS (World Register of Marine
>> Species) http://www.marinespecies.org/index.php
>> I happen to be one of hundreds of taxonomical editors for this database
>> Sorry...
>> Best,
>> Lena
> 
> 
> --
> Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D.
> Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
> gread at actrix.gen.nz
> 
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