Dr. Detlev Doherr is professor for Informatics and GIS at University of Applied Sciences, Offenburg, Germany. He has also been teaching in the careers of Energy System Technology, Chemical Engineering, Communication and Media Engineering. He is Dean of the Bachelor Degree Programs, Head of the Institute of Continuing Academic Education (Wissenschaftliche Weiterbildung) and Director of the Steinbeis Transfer Center of Information Technologies, Offenburg. Dr. Doherr published several books, books chapters and many articles. He is a Certified "European Geologist", European Federation of Geologists, Brussels; and among his current research interest is Information technology, virtual research environments for digital libraries, E-Learning.
Digital libraries are providing books, which are digitized as static texts in data files. However the information technology is insufficiently developed to adequately illustrate the scientific works and the foresight of the researcher Alexander von Humboldt, a German explorer and scientist of the 19th century.
The Humboldt Digital Library opens innovative options for better understanding of Humboldt’s visions of nature because of implemented methods of dynamic hyperlinking within the archive and other online sources. Additionally the interconnection to the Wolfram's knowledge engine enables automatic generation of ontological structures and object classification as a step forward to a system with artificial intelligence.