Ever since I found out about Structured Descriptive Data (SDD) I keep coming back to it. Right now I am planning to make two identification keys, one translated and modernized from a 1961 publication for which I have not found a good alternative, and one completely de novo (well, nearly). In both cases, I started writing out the key in a word processor with a numbered list and tabs and manual alignment etc., but in both cases that

Last november I wrote a blog post about how to model the taxonomic coverage of identification keys. I wanted to model this coverage to be able to determine to what extent an identification key applies to a given observation or specimen, for use in my Library of Identification Resources project. For the same project I also find it useful to be able to archive identification keys.

The website of the Library of Identification Resources has a new feature: a map view. The resources in the catalog are associated with a geographic scope to approximate which species in a taxonomic group can be identified. These geographic scopes are usually countries or continents but can also be subdivisions within countries, multinational ecological regions like mountain ranges, and biogeographical realms.

The main feature of the Library of Identification Resources is the description of the identification key (or matrix, reference, etc.). This description should on its basis specify when the key can or should be used.

Since around this time last year, I have been working on creating a library of identification resources. Here, “identification resources” are identification keys, multi-access (matrix) keys, other works that can aid in the identification of species. The project is managed on GitHub: https://github.com/identification-resources.