[Taxacom] BioNames

[Roderic Page]

Hi Geoff,

Sent from my iPhone

On 2 Jun 2013, at 01:01, "Geoff Read" <gread at actrix.gen.nz> wrote:

> 
> Hi Rod,
> 
> Well done!  My initial reaction is that for me it's going to give me quick
> serendipitous discoveries (I was offered a paper on Micronereis that I'd
> never checked out), and lots of leads that I can choose or not to follow.
> 

That's one of the reasons I built this, to help find stuff. There's a whole bunch of papers yet to be added (e.g., ICZN bulletins, complete journal runs from BioStor) that should make it even easier for find useful stuff.


> Some things noticed.
> 
> The interface is very minimalist! Shouldn't you acknowledge and provide
> links to the data suppliers on the home page?

I like clean and simple, but yes it needs a credits page. I'll put one up shortly.

> 
> Where 'source' is given as just the logo of GBIF and NCBI shouldn't there
> be the actual link underneath?

I wouldn't put it there, but I'll add one.

> 
> Dealing with homonyms.  I tried 'Nereis' and BioNames gave me five. But
> the literature listed as bibliography was the same 41 in each.  The
> Heliconiid Nereis had no relevant refs.
> 

The bibliography search result is based on matching the string, it isn't "taxonomically aware" in the sense of knowing which taxon the name applies to. I have some ideas about how to tackle this, but nothing implemented yet.


> Accidental references. This paper on Gophers turns up in the initial 152
> articles offered on Nereis. The connection is because the end of the
> previous paper in the pdf mentions Nereis.
> http://bionames.org/references/2e30b9c73cc529d9b5e1079565daf484
> 

Yep, using BHL scans means this can happen. I might look at weighting search term by where it occurs in the document, for example.


> Abbreviated titles on the search page. About 25 characters of the title
> are displayed. Which isn't enough. Would be good to see the full title by
> hovering over it, rather than opening another page.

Good idea, I'll look at doing this

> 
> But hours of fun awaits. Thanks for doing this.
> 

Glad you like it, fun is the most important part of this (I'm being serious)

If you have any other thoughts let me know. There's a feedback widget on the side of every page. If you add ideas there I can keep track of them, and you can bug me if they aren't done.

Regards

Rod



> Geoff
> 
> 
> On Sat, June 1, 2013 8:30 pm, Roderic Page wrote:
>> Dear All,
>> 
>> I've released "BioNames", a database of animal (and other ICZN) names
>> linked, wherever possible, to either a digital identifier for the
>> publication that described it, or (even better) the full text (from
>> BioStor and other digital archives). I've wrapped this an interface built
>> with Ryan Schrenk (whose elegant work was funded by EOL). BioNames
>> combines data from ION, BHL, CrossRef, Mendeley, GBIF, NCBI, EOL (yes, a
>> veritable acronym soup) to make something I hope people find useful.
>> 
>> The web site is here: http://bionames.org
> 
> 
>