The Biodiversity Heritage Library: Empowering Discovery through Free Access to Biodiversity Knowledge | Martin R. Kalfatovic, XIX IBC 2017. Shenzhen, China. 25 July 2017

1. Martin R. Kalfatovic
Twitter@BHLProgDirector
Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Biodiversity
Heritage Library
Empowering
Discovery through
Free Access to
Biodiversity
Knowledge
25 July 2017
XIX IBC | Shenzhen

2. 午安

3. “The cultivation of natural
history cannot be efficiently
carried out without reference to
an extensive library.”
Charles Darwin, et al (1847)

4. “Science is all about disseminating knowledge
and building upon what has come before, yet so
much of our knowledge of plants and animals
has remained inaccessible to those who could
make use of it.’”
Dr. John Sullivan
Evolutionary Biologist
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
Cornell University

5. The Biodiversity Heritage Library
is changing this by providing free
and open online access to library
collections from around the world.

6. Inspiring Discovery through Free Access
to Biodiversity Knowledge
Over 10 years of inspiring discovery
15th-21st centuries
through
free & open access
to biodiversity literature & archives
from the
Mission
The Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research
methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity
literature openly available to the world as part of a
global biodiversity community.

7. A global project that encompasses
Technology Libraries Science

8. Biodiversity then …

9. Natural history literature and archives contain
information that is critical to studying life on Earth.
SPECIES
DESCRIPTIONS
DISTRIBUTION
RECORDS
HISTORY OF
SCIENTIFIC
DISCOVERY
CLIMATE
RECORDS
INFORMATION
ON EXTINCT
SPECIES
SCIENTIFIC
OBSERVATIONS
ECOSYSTEM
PROFILES
SCIENTIFIC
ILLUSTRATIONS

10. Extensive. Open. Global

11. “Last year I threw down the gauntlet to [BHL staff] and asked if
there was any possibility of BHL arranging to have made available
the entire run of the UK periodical The Gardeners' Chronicle. I
asked because there is nowhere in my country of residence
(Denmark) that holds it, requiring that I make time consuming and
expensive research trips to London or Cambridge in the UK should I
wish to examine the periodical. I was amazed and delighted that
BHL has achieved what I asked. This contribution to the BHL
catalogue has been a real boon to my research.”
Dr. Toby Musgrave
Horticulturalist & Botanist
Lecturer, Danish Institute for Study Abroad
EXTENSIVE

12. “Biologists are
inclined to agree
that it [biodiversity]
is in one sense
everything”
E.O. Wilson

13. BHL can’t have
everything, but we
try to include as
much as possible!

14. 52+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
122,000+ 205,000+
176+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
615+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 260+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of June 2017

16. Systema naturae
per regna tria
naturae.
Ed. 10, 1758.
Carl von Linné.
biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/542
___________________
Considered the starting
point of zoological
nomenclature.
Listed about 10,000
species of organisms, of
which about 6,000 are
plants and 4,236 are
animals.
The earliest work in BHL is
TheophrastiDe Historia plantarum liber primus
(1483)
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40913187

17. Not just “heritage”
collections
> 23% of BHL's collection of
188,970 items is post-1922
> 72.3% of BHL’s collection is
free of copyright restriction in
the United States
As of August 2016

18. Logbook of the
yacht "France"
Whitney South Sea
Expedition of the American
Museum of Natural History
Volume: v.2 (1926-1928)
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44821245
__________________
BHL includes over 100,000
pages of Field Notes and
related archival material.
Ongoing transcription projects
will make these fully
searchable.

19. Bonn Zoological
Bulletin 61 (1): 135-
39 (July 2012)
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4482124
___________________
With the assistance of
BioStor, BHL now indexes
over 202,000 articles,
chapters or other “segments”
of BHL content.
These are all searchable
through the bibliographic
interface to BHL.
Scotopteryx kuznetzovi
(Wardikian, 1957)
(Lepidoptera, Geometridae,
Larentiinae),
a new species for the fauna of
Iran and Turkey
Hossein Rajaei Sh.* & Dieter
Stuning

20. Charles Darwin’s Library
biodiversitylibrary.org/browse/collection/darwi
nlibrary
___________________
A digital edition and virtual
reconstruction of the surviving
books owned by Charles Darwin.
It also provides full transcriptions of
his annotations and marks. These
works provide important insight into
the development of Darwin’s ideas
on evolution and natural selection.
"If this were true, adios theory"
Charles Darwin wrote these words
in response to reading Principles of
Geology, v. 2 (1837) by Charles
Lyell, who was arguing that changes
in species have limitations. Darwin,
on the other hand, argued that
changes in species are infinite and
continuous, an integral concept
crucial to his theory of evolution.

21. "We believe that by sharing important collections in
BHL and allowing free digital access to such
materials, we will greatly assist researchers in
furthering their own research on biodiversity.
Information inequality between developing and
developed world researchers can be narrowed with
the availability of open access digital repositories.”
Dr. Nura Abdul Karim
Deputy Director
Library, Training, and External Relations
Singapore Botanic Gardens

22. “[BHL] is a fantastic resource, making research possible
that would never have been considered in the past. I use it
to find information on particular species and also to find
source documents for further analysis. The ability to
search by taxon name is invaluable.”
Dr. Quentin Groom
Research Assistant and Biogeographer
Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium
OPEN

23. A Commitment to Open Access…
BHL is a charter signatory of the Bouchout Declaration
for Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management.
Fundamental principles of the Declaration:
Free & Open Use
Policies to Foster Free &
Open Access
Persistent Identifiers
Tracking Identifiers to
Ensure Attribution
Infrastructure, Standards &
Protocols to Improve Access
Linked Data
Sustainable Knowledge Management
Registers for Content &
Services

24. CUSTOM PDF
DOWNLOADS
517,000+
TO DATE
ARTICLE
INDEXING
202,000+
TO DATE
DOI
ASSIGNMENT
104,000+
TO DATE
BHL offers a range of free services
API &
DATA
EXPORTS
TAXONOMIC
NAME
SEARCHING
REFERENCE
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
*Stats as of November 2016

25. Permissions for In Copyright Material
Thanks to the work of the Expanding Access
to Biodiversity Literature team (Mariah Lewis
and Patrick Randall) and Bianca Crowley,
BHL had a successful year with 164 newly
licensed titles and 83 licensors since our last
meeting.
• Licensed titles in CY 2016: 164
• Licensors in CY 2016: 83

26. Permissions for In Copyright Material

28. Agatea violaris
Type specimen from the
U.S. National Herbarium
(Smithsonian Institution)
collected by the United
States Exploring
Expedition, 1838-1842

29. Agatea violaris
Type specimen from the
U.S. National Herbarium
(Smithsonian Institution)
collected by the United
States Exploring
Expedition, 1838-1842
Illustration from the USExEx

30. Agatea violaris
Type specimen from the
U.S. National Herbarium
(Smithsonian Institution)
collected by the United
States Exploring
Expedition, 1838-1842
Illustration from the USExExSpecies Description from the USExEx

34. Secretariat
BHL GOVERNANCE
Program Diretor
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Program Manager
Carolyn Sheffield
Collections
Manager
Bianca Crowley
Outreach &
Communication
Manager
Grace Costantino

35. Technical Advisory Group
BHL GOVERNANCE
Martin R. Kalfatovic
BHL Program Director
Carolyn Sheffield
BHL Program Manager
Mike Lichtenberg
BHL Developer
Joel Richard
Smithsonian Libraries
Susan Lynch
The New York
Botanical Garden

36. FUNDING SOURCES
• Federal Funding
• Federal allocation to Smithsonian
Libraries
• Member and Affiliate Dues
• Institutional Endowments
• Grants
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Arcadia Fund
• Council on Library & Information
Resources
• Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation
• Institute of Museum & Library Services
• JRS Foundation
• MacArthur Foundation
• Mellon Foundation
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Richard Lounsbery Foundation
• Donations
• Product Development
• Institutional Subventions
• In-Kind Contributions

37. CASH & IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS
DIRECT STAFF
$1,424,792.54
VALUE
OF
MEMBER & AFFILIATE
CONTRIBUTIONS 2016
OTHER
$392,751.28
2015
VS
2016
TOTAL IN-KIND
CONTRIBUTIONS
2015
$1,358,908.20
2016
$1,817,543.82
27.26
TOTAL MEMBER &
AFFILIATE FTEs
WORKING ON BHL
IN 2016

38. “Congratulations on a superior on-line library service that is of
great help to anybody that has no direct access to old literature
(like many scientists in developing countries). I used to be
located in the Natural History Museum in Leiden, Netherlands
with an excellent library, but after my retirement I moved to
Brazil and lost direct contact with the Leiden library. In many
cases BHL now provides what I am looking for.”
Dr. Marinus Hoogmoed
Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians, 1963-2003
Naturalis Biodiversity Center
GLOBAL

39. BHL is a Global Consortium
19MEMBERS
AS OF JULY 2017
17AFFILIATES
60+ WORLDWIDE PARTNERS

40. International Focus

41. 6.4+MILLION
TOTAL USERS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
USERS (CY16)115,000+
12+ MILLION
TOTAL WEBSITE VISITS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
VISITS (CY16)194,000+
VISITS FROM
243COUNTRIES &
TERRITORIES
*Stats as of June 2017

42. 1. London
2. New York
3. Mexico City
4. Paris
5. Sydney
6. Berlin
7. Washington
8. Melbourne
9. New Delhi
10. Sao Paulo
Top 10 Cities by Sessions, CY 2016

43. 124,295 users
February 2016
CY 2016
2.123m sessions
1.162m users
96,862 users/month
2007-2016

44. 8.51% sessions
Mobile Sessions CY 2015
10.45% sessions
Mobile Sessions CY 2016
Mobile sessions increase by 34.43% over the past year

45. “BHL is radically changing the status quo and
democratizing access to knowledge about
biodiversity. Now anyone in the world has
instant access to the original species
description in a couple of clicks.”
Dr. John Sullivan
Evolutionary Biologist
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
Cornell University
GLOBAL &
COLLABORATIVE

46. BHL collaborates with and contributes
content to a variety of partners…

47. BHL collaborates with and contributes
content to a variety of partners…
Two more recent collaboration opportunities

48. Engagement
BHL is used in exhibitions in our
partner institutions, such as “Once
There Were Billions” at the National
Museum of Natural History.

49. “BHL provides an excellent service for studies
of marine and other biodiversity. I’ve said it
before, you folks do a great job. Keep up the
good work; you’ve got lots of admirers out
there.”
Dr. Thomas Carefoot
Marine Biologist
University of British Columbia, Canada
Expanding Directions

50. Areas of expansion include Central America, South America,
West and Central Africa, Russia, India, Japan & Korea,
Southeast Asia, and New Zealand.

51. Biodiversity Heritage Library
Field Notes Project
• Funded by a Digitizing Hidden Special
Collections and Archives grant from the
Council on Library and Information
Resources (CLIR)
• Two-year award for 491,713 USD.
• Collaborative effort to digitize field notes,
assign metadata, and publish online
through BHL & Internet Archive
• Lead Institutions: Smithsonian Libraries
and Smithsonian InstitutionArchives.
• Participating Institutions:
• American Museum of Natural History;
• The Field Museum of Natural History
Library; Harvard University Botany
Libraries; Harvard University, Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library;
LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New York
Botanical Garden; Missouri Botanical
Garden, Peter H. Raven Library; Museum
of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of
California, Berkeley; Yale Peabody
MuseumArchives; and Internet Archive.

52. Smithsonian Field Book Project
• Currently funded by the Arcadia
Foundation, UK. Initiatedwith funding
from the Council on Library and
Information Resources and previously
supported by Smithsonian Women’s
Committee, and the National Park
Service’s Save America’s Treasures.
• Arcadia’s two-year award funded at
511,200 USD.
• Is coordinating work to catalog,
conserve and digitize scientists’field
notes from the collections of the
Smithsonian.
• Content will be made available through
the Smithsonian’s CollectionSearch
Center at collections.si.edu and the
Biodiversity Heritage Library at
biodiversitylibrary.org, as well as
international aggregator sites such as
the Internet Archive and the Digital
Public Library of America.

53. Expanding Access to
Biodiversity Literature
• Funded by the Institute of Museum and
Library Services (IMLS) in 2015 as part
of the National Leadership Grants for
Libraries program.
• Two-year award for 846,457 USD.
• EABL is helping libraries, museums,
and natural history societies make their
content more widely available by
providing the tools and support
necessary to facilitate contribution to
the Digital Public Library of America
(DPLA) through BHL.
• Lead Institution: The New York
Botanical Garden.
• Participating Institutions: Harvard
Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of
Comparative Zoology (MCZ), Missouri
Botanical Garden (MBG), and
Smithsonian Libraries (SIL).
• Progressto date: 3,578 volumes (479
titles; 393,063 pages); 127 in copyright
titles from 59 contributors.

54. Foundations to Actions:
Extending Innovations in Digital
Libraries in Partnership with
NDSR Learners
• Digital stewardship residencies funded
by the Instituteof Museum and Library
Services (IMLS). Two-years/$370,756.
• Plan and develop a next generation
digital library using the Biodiversity
Heritage Library (BHL) as a test-bed.
• 5 residents working with
geographically-distributed BHL partners
• Outcomes: best practices document on:
– Transcriptions
– Image search
– Collection analysis
– Use case/user priorities study
– Improved connections to museums, archives &
data providers
• Lead Institution: Harvard/MCZ/Ernst
Mayr Library & MuseumArchives.
• Participating Institutions: Chicago
Botanic Garden, Missouri Botanical
Garden, Los Angeles County Museum
of Natural History, and Smithsonian
Libraries.

55. 116,500+
IMAGES IN FLICKR
TOTAL IMAGES
TAGGED34,500+
256+MILLION
TOTAL VIEWS ON IMAGES
OF TOTAL FLICKR
COLLECTION TAGGED
TAGGED IMAGES IN
EOL
30% 18,000+
BHL FLICKR NAMED 1 OF WIRED’S
27 MUST-FOLLOW FEEDS IN
THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
*Stats as of June 2017
WWW.FLICKR.COM/BIODIVLIBRARY

56. Engage with audiences

57. Support BHL Financial Sustainability
CafePress: http://www.cafepress.com/biodiversityheritagelibrary

58. 77,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
13,800+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
12,500+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
37,400+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
5,300+
AVERAGE MONTHLY
READERS(CY17)
2,200+
FOLLOW @BIODIVLIBRARY
*Stats as of June 2017
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
7,500+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
950+

59. BHL Citizen Science Opportunities
Play a game & help correct
BHL’s Optical Character
Recognition (OCR)
smorballgame.org
beanstalkgame.org
Describe images
from 19th century
periodicals in this
Zooniverse project.
sciencegossip.org
Transcribe scientists’
fieldnotes on:
fromthepage.com
transcription.si.edu
volunteer.ala.org.au
LEARN MORE: BIT.DO/BHLGetInvolved

60. AWARDS
• Digital Library Federation (DLF) 2016
Community/Capacity Award (joint recipient with
Archive of American Broadcasting).
2016
• Internet Archive Hero Award. Global Leaders
in Sharing Knowledge.
2015
• Laureate. IDG’s Computerworld Honors
Program.
• Charles Robert Long Award of Extraordinary
Merit. Council on Botanical and Horticultural
Libraries.
2013
• Victorian Government Arts Leadership
Recognition Award (BHL Australia).
2012
• John Thackray Medal. The Society for the
History of Natural History.
2011
• Outstanding Collaboration Award. Association
for Library Collections & Technical Services
(ALCTS).
2010

61. SPECIES NAMED IN HONOR OF BHL
Vargapupa biheli
“We may think it is natural to have old literature
online, but if we didn't, we would have serious
trouble finding the relevant publications. Therefore
I thought BHL definitely deserves a new species
named after it for the help it provided.”
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3937.1.1
Dr. Barna Páll-Gergely

62. “Joining BHL represents a greater opportunity for CONABIO
to provide broader access to Mexico’s biodiversity knowledge
contained within published literature. We believe that only
with a well-informed society it is possible to develop and
strengthen a culture of appreciation and valuation of
Mexico’s natural capital.”
Dr. José Sarukhán
CONABIO National Coordinator
Mexico City, Mexico
In Closing …

63. A Larger Context …
Supporting the
Convention on Biodiversity
“It shall also, where feasible,
include repatriation of
information.”
Convention on Biodiversity (CBD Article 17, 1992)

64. A Larger Context …
Darwin Declaration (1998)
“The essential requirements for
accessing and utilising this
global information are: that
existing information held in
literature and by current experts
is made available electronically”

65. A Larger Context …
The Biodiversity Commons
BHL strives to be part of that
larger Biodiversity Commons
and provide a space for the
literature of biodiversity to be
widely available…

66. A Larger Context …
The Commons succeeds
when, among other
elements, there is "the
presence of a community;
small and stable
populations with a thick
social network and social
norms".
Elinor Ostrom, "Sustainable
development and the tragedy of
commons" (2009)

67. BHL has created that
community among our
botanical and natural
history libraries

68. BHL is creating a
sustainable
biodiversity commons
for the literature of
taxonomy.

69. BHL will continue to engage with
the larger biodiversity community
and remain a cornerstone of the
“biodiversity commons.”

70. “BHL supercharges the speed and efficiency of
scholarly research…As a free, mobile archive for
natural history literature, BHL is ideal for 21st
century research, which can happen on the field,
in a museum, or at a coffee shop, as long as
there’s internet connectivity.”
Dr. Nicholas Pyenson
Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

71. Specimens, data, publications...

72. 唔該
Twitter @ BHLProgDirector