Came across this paper recently: Despite QR Codes being uncool, there's something appealing about the idea of compressing a DNA barcode sequence into a small image.

I'm working on displaying OCR text from BHL using SVG, and these are just some quick notes on font size. Specifically how SVG font size corresponds to the size of letters, and how you work out what point size was used to print text on a BHL page. SVG font-size corresponds to the EM square of the font.

The new look Biodiversity Heritage Library includes articles extracted from BioStor, which is a step forwards in making the "legacy" biodiversity literature more accessible. But we still have some way to go. In particular the articles lack the obvious decoration of a modern article, the DOI.

On eof the things BioNames will need to do is match taxon names to classifications. For example, if I want to display a taxonomic hierarchy for the user to browse through the names, then I need a map between the taxon names that I've collected and one or more classifications. The approach I'm taking is to match strings, wherever possible using both the name and taxon authority.

One of the fun things about developing web sites is learning new tricks, tools, and techniques. Typically I hack away on my MacBook, and when something seems vaguely usable I stick it on a web server.

The new look Biodiversity Heritage Library has just launched. It's a complete refresh of the old site, based on the Biodiversity Heritage Library–Australia site. If you want an overview of what's new, BHL have published a guide to the new look site. Congrats to involved in the relaunch. One of the new features draws on the work I've been doing on BioStor.

One of the biggest pains (and self-inflicted wounds) in taxonomy is synonymy, the existence of multiple names for the same taxon. A common cause of synonymy is moving species to different genera in order to have their name reflect their classification.

Yet another taxonomic database, this time I can't blame anyone else because I'm the one building it (with some help, as I'll explain below). BioNames was my entry in EOL's Computable Data Challenge (you can see the proposal here: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.92091). In that proposal I outlined my goal: The bulk of the funding from EOL is going into interface work by Ryan Schenk (@ryanschenk), author of synynyms among other cool

This is not a post I'd thought I'd write, because OpenURL is an awful spec. But last week I ended up in vigorous debate on Twitter after I posted what I thought was a casual remark: This ended up being a marathon thread about OpenURL, accessibility, bibliographic metadata, and more.

I spend a lot of time searching the web for bibliographic metadata and links to digitised versions of publications.

Few things have annoyed be as much as the following post on TAXACOM: I'm trying to work out why this seemingly innocuous post made me so mad. I think this is because I think this fundamentally framing the question the wrong way. Surely the goal is to have a list of names that is global in scope, well documented, and freely usable by all without restriction? Surely we want open and free access to fundamental biodiversity data?