Seabook

Seabook is a digital platform for maritime information, combining a bibliographic database, data repository, and discovery service for nautical literature, charts, vessel registers, and marine datasets. It supports search, filtering, annotation, and data export, aiming to facilitate research, education, and policymaking in maritime domains. It is maintained by an international consortium and released under an open license.

History and governance: Initiated in the early 2010s as an open-data project by researchers and librarians, Seabook grew into a collaborative platform with partner libraries, ports, universities, and government agencies. Management is through a rotating steering council, with governance aimed at transparency and community contributions. The software stack is primarily open source.

Content and features: The platform aggregates bibliographic records, nautical charts, vessel registers, marine weather and climate datasets, and scholarly articles. Features include full-text search, metadata cross-linking, APIs for programmatic access, user annotations, and data versioning. Content is curated but also allows community submissions, subject to quality checks.

Impact and limitations: Seabook is used by researchers, educators, naval historians, and policymakers to locate sources and datasets. Critics note licensing constraints on some chart data and gaps in coverage for non-Western maritime literature, as well as ongoing sustainability concerns for long-term hosting.

See also: Open data; Digital libraries; Maritime databases; Nautical charts.