Daniel Mietchen

Markup in the mobilization of biodiversity literature

Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

● hundreds of millions of pages○ ca. 20k treatments of new taxa per year○ 50-100k re-descriptions annually○ scattered across thousands of journals

and books

Biodiversity literature

● geared towards the human reader● not machine-readable (scans/ PDF)● accumulated over three centuries● includes much of what is published

today

Legacy literature

● digital > paper-only● open access > hidden● with > without open data● soon: machine readable > PDF● these biases may skew analyses

Use & citation

● identifying concepts● linking them using controlled vocabularies● integrating with other sources of information

Markup

Reis et al. (2008), marked up by Shotton et al. (2009). CC BY 2.5

● automated markup of prospective literature● crowdsourced markup of legacy literature● semi-automated markup with expert

assistance

Scaling up

● mark up taxonomic publications henceforth● focus on revisionary works (biotas) ● adjust granularity to concrete use cases● follow standards● automate workflows

Recommendations

Image credit: Playingwithbrushes, CC BY 2.0