University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

![JSTOR Logo RGB
60x76](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rrpRKGbMfmU/Va-a080CEpI/AAAAAAAAD9w/3fkk0z-H3sI/JSTOR_Logo_RGB_60x76.gif?imgmax=800 "JSTOR_Logo_RGB_60x76.gif"){border="0"
width="60" height="76" style="float:right;"}Browsing JSTOR\'s [Global
Plants](http://plants.jstor.org) database I was struck by the [number of
comments](http://plants.jstor.org/comments) people have made on
individual plant specimens. For example, for the [Holotype of
*Scorodoxylum hartwegianum*
Nees](http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000534285)
(K000534285) there is a [comment from Håkan
Wittzell](http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000534285#comment-1870490692)
that the \"Collection number should read 1269 according to Plantae
Hartwegianae\". In JSTOR the collection number is 1209.

Now, many (if not all) of these specimens will also be in GBIF. Indeed,
K000534285 is in GBIF as <http://www.gbif.org/occurrence/912442645>,
also with collection number 1209. A GBIF user will have no idea that
there is some doubt about one item of metadata about this specimen.

So, an obvious thing to do would be to make the link between the JSTOR
and GBIF records. Implementing this would need so fussing because (sigh)
unlike DOIs for articles we don\'t have agreed upon identifiers for
specimens. So we\'d need to do some mapping between the specimen barcode
**K000534285**, the JSTOR URL
**http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000534285**,
and the GBIF record **http://www.gbif.org/occurrence/912442645**.

In addition to providing users with more information, it might also be
useful in kickstarting annotation on the GBIF site. At the moment GBIF
has no mechanism for annotating data, and if it did, then it would have
to start from scratch. Imagine that a person visiting occurrence
912442645 sees that it has already attracted attention elsewhere (e.g.,
JSTOR). They might be encouraged to take part in that conversation
(because at least one person cared enough to comment already). Likewise,
we could feed annotations on the GBIF site to JSTOR.

A variation on this idea is to think of annotations such as those in the
JSTOR database as being analogous to the tweets, blog posts, and
bookmarking that [altmetric](http://altmetric.com) tracks for academic
papers. Imagine if we applied the same logic to GBIF and had a way to
show users that a specimen has been commented on in JSTOR Plants?
Thinking further down the track, we could image adding other sorts of
\"attention\", such as citations by papers, vouchers for DNA sequences,
etc.

It would be a fun project to see whether the [Disqus](http://disqus.com)
API enabled us to create a tool that could match JSTOR Global Plants
comments to GBIF occurrences.


Browsing JSTOR's Global Plants database I was struck by the number of comments people have made on individual plant specimens. For example, for the Holotype of
<em>
 Scorodoxylum hartwegianum
</em>
Nees (K000534285) there is a comment from Håkan Wittzell that the "Collection number should read 1269 according to Plantae Hartwegianae". In JSTOR the collection number is 1209. Now, many (if not all) of these specimens will also be in GBIF.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Altmetrics, Disqus, GBIF, JSTOR, and annotating biodiversity data