An LSID authority for specimens and an LSID browsing client
Kevin James Richards
Abstract
The requirements and use-cases for globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) have been developed by the TDWG community over the last 18 months. Use-cases include:
• unique and persistent identification of taxon name and specimen data;
• linking specific specimen records to accepted taxonomic names; and
• detection of duplicate records.
After careful investigation of several identification schemes, the TDWG Globally Unique Identifiers group (TDWG GUID) endorsed the use of Life Science IDentifiers (LSIDs) for use in biodiversity information applications.
LSID resolvers are Internet services that return the data and metadata associated LSID to a requester. Resolvers have been set up mainly to process taxonomic name data. Important data types such as specimens have been neglected. It is therefore important to examine and test the use of LSIDs and related technologies within the context of specimen data.
‘Herb IMI’ is a collection of over 300,000 fungal specimens from the International Mycological Institute (IMI). The Herb IMI database contain fungus/host identification data and these records also have corresponding LSIDs for the fungal names in Index Fungorum and plant names in the International Plant Names Index (IPNI). Both these global nomenclators have Taxonomic Names LSID resolvers in place. This combination made Herb IMI a candidate for testing LSIDs and related technologies.
We developed an LSID resolver for the Herb IMI collection and a tool for demonstrating LSID related technologies such as the use of Resource Description Framework (RDF). RDF is a language in which entities are modelled with subject-predicate-statements known as “triples”. Associated protocols enable a user to query sets of these triples and to infer relationships between entities. The tool that we have developed works with the specimen LSID resolver and TDWG’s LSID vocabularies to display, browse, store and query the RDF associated with LSIDs.
This talk presents the processes, problems and outcomes of implementing LSIDs and RDF with the Herb IMI specimen database. The browsing tool developed for this project will also be demonstrated.
• unique and persistent identification of taxon name and specimen data;
• linking specific specimen records to accepted taxonomic names; and
• detection of duplicate records.
After careful investigation of several identification schemes, the TDWG Globally Unique Identifiers group (TDWG GUID) endorsed the use of Life Science IDentifiers (LSIDs) for use in biodiversity information applications.
LSID resolvers are Internet services that return the data and metadata associated LSID to a requester. Resolvers have been set up mainly to process taxonomic name data. Important data types such as specimens have been neglected. It is therefore important to examine and test the use of LSIDs and related technologies within the context of specimen data.
‘Herb IMI’ is a collection of over 300,000 fungal specimens from the International Mycological Institute (IMI). The Herb IMI database contain fungus/host identification data and these records also have corresponding LSIDs for the fungal names in Index Fungorum and plant names in the International Plant Names Index (IPNI). Both these global nomenclators have Taxonomic Names LSID resolvers in place. This combination made Herb IMI a candidate for testing LSIDs and related technologies.
We developed an LSID resolver for the Herb IMI collection and a tool for demonstrating LSID related technologies such as the use of Resource Description Framework (RDF). RDF is a language in which entities are modelled with subject-predicate-statements known as “triples”. Associated protocols enable a user to query sets of these triples and to infer relationships between entities. The tool that we have developed works with the specimen LSID resolver and TDWG’s LSID vocabularies to display, browse, store and query the RDF associated with LSIDs.
This talk presents the processes, problems and outcomes of implementing LSIDs and RDF with the Herb IMI specimen database. The browsing tool developed for this project will also be demonstrated.