[Zoobank-list] GBIF GUID Workshop Report

[Yde de Jong]

Dear Richard & Simon,

Thanks for keeping up ZooBank/ICZN!

To your information: Within the the context of the five-year EU 
Network of Excellence "European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy 
(EDIT)" starting at March 2006, supporting the set up of ZooBank is 
explicitly intended. Our first step will be to ask the European 
Science Foundation (ESF) to fund some conferences or workshops to 
discuss and define ZooBank. We hope this can be done as part of the 
<http://www.esf.org/esf_activity_home.php?language=0&domain=0&activity=2>ESF 
scientific Networks program. Currently I am undertaking some initial 
actions toward the ESF which I hope to present in London at 1st March 
2006.

In addition we are searching for possibilities to finance ZooBank as 
a project itself. This will be more difficult. Our initial approach 
will be to try some programs we know from the Dutch Science 
Foundation, however, every suggestions is welcomed. When we have a 
first proposal in place, it can of course be used for other potential 
funding attempts as well.

Beside I think we should already start some discussions on relevant 
issues at this mailinglist. I will try to give a kick-off during the 
next weeks. These issues includes:

(1) Which resources should ZooBank use for backward indexing?

(2) Should objective synonymy also be kept in ZooBank?

(3) Should spelling variants also be kept?

(4) Should the ICZN current rule on gender adaption be dropped?

(5) Should ZooBank establish a standard for author names?

(6) Should the inclusion of the original description be mandatory?

(7) How to engage the zoological community?

(8) How to deal with LSIDs / GUIDs?

Kind regards,

Yde de Jong

Zoological Museum Amsterdam


----- Original Message -----

>Dear ZooBank Community,
>
>This message was jointly written by Simon Coppard (Development officer for
>ICZN) and Richard Pyle (one of the ZooBank authors).  It is being sent
>through Richard's email account only because Simon did not have his laptop
>with him at the time this was written.
>
>We both attended the GBIF-sponsored workshop on GUIDs (Globally unique
>Identifiers) for biodiversity data
>(http://wiki.gbif.org/guidwiki/wikka.php).  Needless to say, taxonomy and
>nomenclature are a major component of that effort.
>
>What is extremely clear to both of us from this 3-day workshop, is that the
>biological data community is moving forward quickly with mechanisms to
>assign GUIDs to biological data objects (including taxon names) -- i.e.,
>within the next 2-3 months.  The other nomenclatural communities (botanical,
>mycological, etc.) have extensive nomenclatural datasets (e.g., IPNI, Index
>Fungorum, etc.) that are ready to participate actively in this process --
>both in developing the procedures for assigning and issuing GUIDs to taxon
>names, and committing to serving those GUIDs via the internet.
>
>It was obvious that the workshop organizers and participants want the
>zoological community to participate in this process, ideally speaking as
>"one voice" represented by ZooBank/ICZN.  If we (the zoological community)
>wish to be a part of the development and decision-making process, we need to
>act SOON.
>
>What this means is that we need a clear idea of what, if any, data content
>ZooBank will be able to provide in the short-term future.
>
>Do we, as a group, wish to be a part of this important process?  (We both
>believe that we should!) If so, we need to begin coordinating with the other
>(non-zoological) nomenclators (who will be coordinating amongst themselves)
>well in advance of the next GBIF workshop on GUIDs (likely to be May of this
>year).
>
>As a point of clarification, we're not talking about establishing a "live"
>registry of taxon names right now (we can take our time on that without
>being left behind). Rather, it is about having a voice in how international
>nomenclatural data exchange standards are set and implemented, and
>committing to serve as a unified "face" of the zoological nomenclatural
>community as a provider of GUIDs for zoological names (to whatever extend
>ZooBank will have access to data on existing names).
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Simon Coppard, ICZN
>simc at nhm.ac.uk
>
>Richard Pyle, Bishop Museum
>deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
>
>P.S. These are our own personal interpretations after participating in the
>GBIF workshop, and not necessarily the views of our respective
>organizations.
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