The Biodiversity Heritage Library. 10+1 and Beyond: Looking Forward

Martin R. Kalfatovic | Program Director

12 April 2016 | London@udcmrk | @BioDivLibrary |

#BHLDay

The Biodiversity Heritage Library10+1 and Beyond: Looking Forward

Good Afternoon!Goeie middag!

الخير !مساء大家下午好！ Dobré odpoledne!God eftermiddag!G'day!Goedemiddag!Bon après-midi!Guten Tag!Καλό απόγευμα!Feasgar math!

Gudde Mëtteg!Buenas tardes!Good mchana!

Bona tarda!!צהריים טובים

Jó napot kívánok!Dea-tráthnóna!

Buon pomeriggio!Salve!

Prynhawn da!

The cultivation of natural science cannot be efficiently carried on without reference to an extensive library...

Charles Darwin, et al (1847)

The cultivation of natural science cannot be efficiently carried on without reference to an extensive library...

Charles Darwin, et al (1847)

The BHL 10+1 and Beyond: Looking Forward

Inspiring Discovery through Free Access to Biodiversity Knowledge

VisionThe Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.

Mission

A global project that encompasses

Libraries ScienceTechnology

Stewardship

Service

Leadership

Engagement

InternationalFocus

Inspiration

StewardshipBHL must be trustworthy, reliable and accountable to its users, sponsors, members and partners. We operate with transparency and adhere to the highest ethical standards to ensure this trust and to ensure access to BHL digital content now and into the future.

Stewardship48.8 million pages of biodiversity literature are not enough … BHL will continue to scan the legacy literature & actively seek permission for in-copyright materials to advance the world’s knowledge of life on the planet

StewardshipBHL builds on the important collections in our partner libraries.

The combination of anywhere digital collections and carefully conserved physical collections will remain a priority in years ahead.

StewardshipBHL will continue to unlock treasures, both images and text, in its collections by providing better access to illustrations and full-text search.

StewardshipBHL must increase the content types that are needed for the work of the biodiversity community.

The first are field notes and related materials that are often the first descriptions of new species.

ServiceThe BHL serves the world of biodiversity researchers and those interested in biodiversity through aggregation and stewardship of the digital files and through improving discoverability and user interfaces and increasing opportunities for research and interpretation.

BHL will be a tool for other machines as much as for human researchers. BHL will be further optimtized for ...

Service

Application Protocol Interfaces (APIs) for access to content Downloads for data reuse Creation of a computational data store for deep data mining Unique identifiers at multiple levels

Service

EngagementBy engaging with user communities across the globe the BHL will support discovery and innovative uses of open access biodiversity information to facilitate dialogue about scientific issues within social and cultural contexts.

EngagementBHL is used in exhibitions in our partner institutions, such as “Once There Were Billions” at the Smithsonian.

EngagementBHL will continue to engage the community in new ways to enhance content …

Science Gossip


Experimentation with new platforms, like gaming


Flickr image tagging

LeadershipWe aspire to leadership in the realms of digital libraries, collaboration, and open access for biodiversity literature.

BHL must be trustworthy, reliable and accountable to its users, sponsors, members and partners. We operate with transparency and adhere to the highest ethical standards to ensure this trust and to ensure access to BHL digital content now and into the future.

Leadership

The BHL has received the generous support of participating institutions, national governments, and private foundations

Leadership

Since 2006, these governmental funding agencies and private foundations have contributed … $US14.3 million to the success of BHL.

Leadership

Over 150 generous individual donors from 26 countries have provided over $US24,000 to directly support BHL digitization – that represents over a quarter million pages of biodiversity literature!

Leadership

An additional $US42,000 has been donated directly to the Smithsonian Libraries to support the BHL Secretariat and field book work.

Leadership

And our own BHL Members, Affiliates, and Partners have contributed $US1.3 million and 14 FTE in direct or indirect support during calendar year 2015.

Leadership

Continue to work with national and pan-national digital libraries such as the Digital Public Library of America and Europeana to further distribute BHL content in new ways.

Leadership

Continue to work with national and pan-national biodiversity organizations further distribute BHL content in new ways.

Leadership

International FocusWorking across institutional and political boundaries, the BHL engages with partners across the globe in building content, repatriating literature, supporting partners, innovative approaches to long-term capacity building and sustainability harmonising content and rights issues.

International FocusHenning Scholtz (MfN) and Graham Higley (NHM) saw the benefits of the globalization of the BHL early, in 2009. Their initiatives lead to the formation of BHL Europe in 2009 with an eContentPlus grant from the EU for €3.36m

International Focus

International Focus

International Focus

1. London2. Paris3. New York4. Washington5. Mexico City6. Berlin7. Sydney8. Vienna9. Sao Paulo10. Madrid

International Focus

InspirationThe BHL stimulates curiosity about nature and culture, inspiring people to learn, explore, and better understand their role and impact in this world.

“BHL is an awesomely useful resource! It’s very helpful to have the BHL when I’m traveling away from ‘home base.’ No need to carry around a rare

120 year old book if you can just open a scanned file of it on your computer.”

Dr. Christopher M., Invertebrate Zoologist

BHL is radically changing the status quo and democratizing access to

knowledge about biodiversity. Now anybody in the world has instant

access to the original species descriptions

Dr. John S., Ichthyologist

Inspiration

I am a PhD student and your library is one of the most important

fountains of knowledge for me - the literature available at BHL is often

not available anywhere else - since I have to rely heavily on historic

works.Moyna M.

Inspiration

Biodiversity Heritage Library never ceases to amaze me- crucial for #taxonomy (via @charneena)

Biodiversity Heritage Library is extraordinary free repository 4 researchers & nat historians. Have a gander…(@lawsofben)

Biodiversity Library: *invaluable* in our recent revision of Australian #stinglessbees -Thanks to all @BioDivLibrary (@annedollin)

Love animals? Love fine vintage prints? Explore the @BioDivLibrary collection and indulge! (@UnitedDP)

Inspiration

I feel that BHL has helped reignite a love of natural history, both for me at a personal level, but also more

broadly in biology.

Dr. Christopher Buddle

Inspiration

Thanks to ...BHL Past Leaders

Graham Higley Cathy Norton Tom Garnett Chris Freeland William Ulate

Thanks to ...BHL Executive Committee

Nancy E. Gwinn Constance Rinaldo Jane Smith

Thanks to ...BHL Secretariat

Carolyn Sheffield Grace Costantino Bianca Crowley

And to ...The Zeros and Ones of BHL … Mike Lichtenberg has been the key programmer and web developer for BHL since 2007.

In conclusionI have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine.

J.B.S. Haldane (1927)