PS 12-94
From historical field notes to mobile field guides: The Encyclopedia of Life and the Biodiversity Heritage Library team up to connect biodiversity-related content across the centuries to support today’s ecological research and education needs
The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL; http://eol.org/) and the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL; (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/) are increasing the depth of content they serve while increasing the ways for people to participate in ecological sciences. Using a case example of ornithologist William Brewster, this poster demonstrates how open science projects are used to connect content from different sources to help advance both scientific and educational pursuits. Field notebooks are a gold mine of unpublished observations, sketches, weather reports, and specimen lists: these records are primary source data at its most raw and unevaluated. Brewster’s field notes in the BHL are linked to species pages on EOL, then used to create EOL Collections. EOL Collections can create mobile field guides using the iNaturalist (http://www.inaturalist.org/guides) platform, allowing comparative observations with historical checklists. Further analysis can show changes in species composition over time. Curated observations on iNaturalist are shared with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and corresponding images are shared with EOL, closing the data lifecycle and making the information broadly available. Connecting biodiversity content in these ways brings historical records to light and makes them more accessible for scientific research, management and educational purposes.
Open science resources, tools and applications are accelerating the rate at which historical and current biodiversity information can be mobilized, customized and turned into participatory activities. The information can be presented in new formats and made available on the web and mobile devices, which make the content more useful, engaging and broadly available. This poster demonstrates the process by which historical checklists and current knowledge are melded using tools that support ecological research, management and educational activities. As part of an IMLS National Leadership grant, the field notes of William Brewster, a highly published ornithologist working during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were digitized and made accessible via the BHL portal. These field notes are associated with corresponding EOL species pages. The EOL Collection feature recreates Brewster’s historical checklists and these Collections are used to create freely available mobile field guides through iNaturalist. These guides can enhance contemporary ecological studies and make the entire research cycle of this scientist’s work available for analysis by historians of science, scientists, social scientists, humanists or anyone interested in the process of discovery, by creating a richer and more interactive resource.