A botanical demonstration of the potential of linking data using unique identifiers for people
Anton Güntsch, Quentin Groom, Marcus Ernst, Jörg Holetschek, Andreas Plank, Dominik Röpert, David Fichtmüller, David Peter Shorthouse, Roger Hyam, Mathias Dillen, Maarten Trekels, Elspeth Haston, Heimo Rainer
Abstract
Natural history collection data available digitally on the web have so far only made limited use of the potential of semantic links among themselves and with cross-disciplinary resources. In a pilot study, botanical collections of the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) have therefore begun to semantically annotate their collection data, starting with data on people, and to link them via a central index system. As a result, it is now possible to query data on collectors across different collections and automatically link them to a variety of external resources. The system is being continuously developed and is already in production use in an international collection portal.