The Application of Globally Unique Identifiers in Taxonomic Databases
Dave Thau, SEEK Project Group, University of Kansas and www.learningsite.comOver the past decade or two, numerous databases containing information about biological taxa have come on line. Sharing information between these databases is complicated by a number of factors, not the least of which is the lack of a universal mechanism for identifying a resource in a database. Globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) are a mechanism by which information resources can be uniquely identified across the Internet. A leading GUID system is Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs). This talk will introduce the notion of GUIDs, discuss their usefulness in the context of taxonomic databases, and demonstrate the application and utility of the LSID system in databases containing taxonomic information. If time permits, questions such as “Who provides the GUIDs?” “What happens if a database goes offline?” and “What sorts of things should be identified by GUIDs?” will be addressed.