Many institutions hold collections of archives and other materials that document the history of science, technology, engineering and medicine. Online technologies have enabled information about these collections – and in some cases the collections themselves – to be made available widely for research. However often these efforts result in disconnected silos of information that are difficult to find and lack the depth that they could have if they were connected to other resources.

The Encyclopedia of Australia Science is an online register that seeks to bring these resources together in the Australian context, documenting Australian scientists and scientific organisations through evidence found in archives and records, along with an in-depth bibliography of the history of Australian science. However many Australian scientists have had global careers, and developments in Australia have influenced or been influenced by the global scientific community, so there are broader linkages that can be made.

This paper will explore the need for research infrastructure and services for the description and contextualisation of history of science, technology, engineering, and medicine resources at multiple levels, ranging from organisational, through national, to international networks of linked data. Rather than replicating the localised and fragmented documentation that existed in the pre-digital world, online resources enable the creation of rich networks of contextual information linking resources from multiple locations together in ways that can create new ways of interpreting or understanding the material.