19th International CODATA Conference
Category: Interoperability

Delivering a name-server for biodiversity information

Charles Hussey (c.hussey@nhm.ac.uk), The Natural History Museum, UK
Steve Wilkinson (steve.wilkinson@jncc.gov.uk), Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Monkstone House, UK
John Tweddle (j.tweddle@nhm.ac.uk), The Natural History Museum, UK

There are now a number of initiatives that allow searching across multiple datasets of preserved specimens or biological observations. We assert that a taxonomic thesaurus or name-server is necessary to enable optimal retrieval of records when searching by organism name. This presentation covers the theoretical and practical aspects of integrating names from multiple biological data sources, based upon four years of work of the National Biodiversity (NBN) in the United Kingdom. The NBN has mobilised over 12 million observational records through the NBN Gateway (www.searchnbn.net). Organism names are co-ordinated through the NBN Species Dictionary, based at The Natural History Museum in London (www.nhm.ac.uk/nbn/). Both the Gateway and Species Dictionary follow a data warehouse architecture, which facilitates data integration and validation.