IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jdataj/v11y2026i9p212-d2023355.html

Digital Barriers Still Hindering the Retrieval and Analysis of Historical Dark Data in Phenology

Author

Listed:
  • Nagai Shin

    (Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 3173-25 Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan)

  • Taku M. Saitoh

    (Center for Environmental and Societal Sustainability, Gifu University, Gifu 501-1193, Japan)

  • Chifuyu Katsumata

    (Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 3173-25 Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan)

Abstract

To deepen our understanding of human–ecosystem interactions, researchers need to be able to retrieve and analyze historical dark data such as plant and animal phenology, but there are often barriers to doing so. Despite the development of online digitization and other tools, including library search engines, digital collections, machine translation, OCR (optical character recognition), HTR (handwritten text recognition), and generative AI technologies, and the establishment of standards and frameworks (e.g., FAIR Principles and the International Image Interoperability Framework), barriers to converting analog records to digital records (“digital barriers”) and to translating local languages to an international common language (“language barriers”) still remain. We present a case study example of the use of historical dark data in phenology in Japan and the digital and language barriers encountered. We then briefly summarize factors and challenges hindering use of this data and describe the benefits of further removal of these barriers.

Suggested Citation

  • Nagai Shin & Taku M. Saitoh & Chifuyu Katsumata, 2026. "Digital Barriers Still Hindering the Retrieval and Analysis of Historical Dark Data in Phenology," Data, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-10, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jdataj:v:11:y:2026:i:9:p:212-:d:2023355
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5729/11/9/212/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5729/11/9/212/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jdataj:v:11:y:2026:i:9:p:212-:d:2023355. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.