LI@Geo.X – A Laboratory Infrastructure Search Portal for the Geo.X Network

Geo.X is the research network for geosciences in the Berlin and Potsdam metropolitan region and integrates five universities and six extramural research institutions. Our partners are committed to a FAIR and sustainable handling of research data and infrastructures. For this purpose, we established a search portal for the geoscientific laboratory infrastructure and related research data of the network partners (LI@Geo.X). The portal aims to increase the visibility and accessibility of the partner institutions’ infrastructures, data, models, and projects, and thus supports scientists in implementing collaborative research projects. LI@Geo.X is based on state-of-the-art thesauri adapted to the Earth System Sciences (e.g., NASA GCMD, DFG’s instrumentation category keys). For each laboratory, LI@Geo.X provides a brief description comprising information on the instruments, analytical methods, contact persons, partner institution, link to German and English websites, and, if given, an assignment to a laboratory complex. In addition, we will supplement information on user access to laboratories and user regulations soon. The next stage of development is to include information on software and data used and produced in the laboratories. Current technical advancements of LI@Geo.X encompass: • decentral editing and curation of laboratory’s metadata, • semantic search options and extended filter functions, • a web-based user interface for the submission of new or modified metadata records. LI@Geo.X is an ongoing cooperation project and can be accessed via https://www.geo-x.net/geox-laboratory-infrastructure-search/. The portal presently includes about 200 entries from all 11 partner institutions. LI@Geo.X also collaborates with other networks such as the Archaeometry Network Berlin-Brandenburg and is embedded in the NFDI4Earth landscape.