University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

![Taxonomist
map](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6bocc-LQmSrBNuFMdkWXDU0ajulO1xvMdENkghN8S6309__vaEMNEZmGj9r1vIbzWK6JYbl2kY3DRp5uLQWXELmwLTDv47wiXkCVLiy_bZF5qBb6ihKUkH9so-gdchGpjY7nR/s0/taxonomist_map.png "taxonomist_map.png"){style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;"
border="0" width="560" height="285"}David Shorthouse
([@dpsspiders](https://twitter.com/dpsspiders)) makes some very cool
things, and his latest project [World Taxonomists &
Systematists](http://taxonomists.shorthouse.net) is a great example of
using automation to assemble a list of the world\'s taxonomists and
systematists. The project uses [ORCID](https://orcid.org). As many
researchers will know, ORCID\'s goal is to have every researcher
uniquely identified by an ORCID id (mine is
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7101-9767>) that is linked to all a
researcher\'s academic output, including papers, datasets, and more. So
David has been querying ORCID for keywords such as taxonomist, taxonomy,
nomenclature, or systematics to locate taxonomists and add them to his
[list](http://taxonomists.shorthouse.net). For more detail see [his post
on the ORCID
blog](https://orcid.org/blog/2018/04/06/compendium-taxonomists-orcid).

Using ORCIDs to help taxonomists gain visibility is an idea that\'s been
a round for a little while. I blogged about it in [Possible project:
\#itaxonomist, combining taxonomic names, DOIs, and ORCID to measure
taxonomic
impact](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2015/08/possible-project-itaxonomist-combining.html),
at which time David was already doing another cool piece of work linking
collectors to ORCIDs and their collecting effort, see e.g. [data for
Terry A.
Wheeler](http://collector.shorthouse.net/agent/0000-0002-7260-0350).

There are, of course, a bunch of obstacles to this approach. Many
taxonomists lack ORCIDs, and I keep coming across \"private\" ORCIDs
where taxonomists have an ORCID id but don\'t make their profile public,
which makes it hard to identify them as taxonomists. Typically I
discover these profiles via metadata in CrossRef, which will list the
ORCID id for any authors that have them and have made them know to the
publisher of their paper.

ORCID ids are only available for people who are alive (or alive recently
enough to have registered), so there will be many taxonomists who will
never have an ORCID id. In this case, it may be Wikidata to the rescue:

> Here for example is a SPARQL query for all taxon authors with no date
> of death<https://t.co/xlgLG0Md3m>  
>   
> (Just hit the big \"arrow\" button to run it - takes a short while;
> 16K results)  
>   
> H/T
> [@WikidataFacts](https://twitter.com/WikidataFacts?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> for the query.
>
> --- Andy Mabbett (@pigsonthewing) [April 6,
> 2018](https://twitter.com/pigsonthewing/status/982346178934296576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Many taxonomists have Wikidata entries because they are either notable
enough to be in Wikipedia, or they have an entry in
[Wikispecies](https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), and people
like Andy Mabbett ([@pigsonthewing](https://twitter.com/pigsonthewing))
have been diligently ensuring these people have Wikidata entries.
There\'s huge scope for making use of these links.

Meanwhile, if you are a taxonomist or a systematist and you don\'t have
an ORCID, get yourself one at [ORCID](https://orcid.org), claim your
papers, and you should appear shortly in the [World Taxonomists &
Systematists](http://taxonomists.shorthouse.net) list.


David Shorthouse (@dpsspiders) makes some very cool things, and his latest project World Taxonomists &amp; Systematists is a great example of using automation to assemble a list of the world's taxonomists and systematists. The project uses ORCID.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

World Taxonomists and Systematists via ORCID