Type specimens are fundamental for taxonomy and irreplaceable components of natural history collections. Type catalogues are scholarly publications listing type material of certain taxonomic groups held in specific collections. The open, collaborative knowledge base Wikidata was used to create a multilingual dataset of published type catalogues, starting with such articles linked to the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Wikidata items were enriched to allow filtering for specific institutions, collections, taxa, collectors or expeditions. This article aims to improve accessibility to relevant biodiversity literature and to highlight the potential of Wikidata for research and knowledge contextualisation by providing a dynamically growing dataset that can be reused as AI training data.
Natural History Museum of Berlin, Germany - ORCID: 0000-0003-2982-7792
Chapter Title
Opening Up and Linking Type Catalogues in Wikidata – Increasing The Accessibility of Natural History Collections
Authors
Sabine von Mering
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1010-2.25
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Wikidata e la ricerca. Condividere esperienze / Wikidata and Research. Sharing Experiences
Book Subtitle
Atti del Convegno, Firenze, 5-6 giugno 2025 / Conference proceedings, Florence, 5-6 June 2025
Editors
Elena Marangoni, Camillo Carlo Pellizzari di San Girolamo
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
378
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1010-2
ISBN Print
979-12-215-1009-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-1010-2
Series Title
Studi e saggi
Series ISSN
2704-6478
Series E-ISSN
2704-5919