Towards an Open Taxonomy

Abstract

Taxonomy is in many ways still predigital. Most taxonomic databases are little more than digitized index cards linking names to often-cryptic bibliographic citations, oblivious to the growing volume of scientific literature that is now online. A growing fraction of taxonomic literature is becoming freely available, either through adoption of Open Access publishing models, or through digitizing efforts such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Yet much of the most basic information about biodiversity, namely taxonomic description, remains either behind a pay wall, or only available in paper form. This talk sketches the goal of an "Open Taxonomy." The first step towards this goal is digitally linking scientific names to the primary literature using standard identifiers such as DOIs. I argue that until we make serious inroads into this task, taxonomic knowledge will remain in a ghetto largely ignored by the wider scientific community.