“The Gift of Time”: Impact through Open: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Bracing for Impact: Digitizing Collections to Change Lives. 2017 Smithsonian Digitization Fair. Washington. 19 October 2017.

1. Martin R. Kalfatovic
Twitter@UDCMRK
Associate Director | Program Director
Smithsonian Libraries | Biodiversity Heritage Library
“The Gift of Time”: Impact through Open
The Biodiversity Heritage Library
Bracing for Impact:
Digitizing Collections to Change Lives
2017 Smithsonian Digitization Fair
19 October 2017| Washington
library.si.edu
library.si.edu

2. Natural History, circa1599

4. 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.

5. “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

6. Accelerating research efficiency for free
BHL Value Proposition
The Biodiversity Heritage Library makes it easier than ever
to access the information you need to study and explore life
on Earth…for free, anytime, anywhere.

7. 53+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
128,000+ 213,000+
179+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
700+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 300+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of October 2017

8. 53+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
128,000+ 213,000+
179+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
700+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 300+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of October 2017

9. 6.6+MILLION
TOTAL USERS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
USERS110,000+
12.7+ MILLION
TOTAL WEBSITE VISITS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
VISITS190,000+
VISITS FROM
243COUNTRIES &
TERRITORIES
*Stats as of October 2017

10. 84,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
15,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
13,100+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
40,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
5,400+
AVERAGE MONTHLY
READERS(CY17)
2,100+
FOLLOW @BIODIVLIBRARY
*Stats as of October 2017
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
9,250+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
1,400+

11. 121,000+
IMAGES IN FLICKR
TOTAL IMAGES
TAGGED37,400+
275+MILLION
TOTAL VIEWS ON IMAGES
OF TOTAL FLICKR
COLLECTION TAGGED
TAGGED IMAGES IN
EOL
31% 18,000+
BHL FLICKR NAMED 1 OF WIRED’S
27 MUST-FOLLOW FEEDS IN
THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
*Stats as of October 2017.
WWW.FLICKR.COM/BIODIVLIBRARY

12. BHL is a Global Consortium
19MEMBERS
AS OF OCTOBER 2017
18AFFILIATES
60+ WORLDWIDE PARTNERS

13. BHL collaborates with and contributes
content to a variety of partners…
GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS

14. Secretariat | Smithsonian Libraries
BHL GOVERNANCE
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Program Manager
Carolyn Sheffield
Collections
Manager
Bianca Crowley
Outreach &
Communication
Manager
Grace Costantino

15. 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

16. CUSTOM PDF
DOWNLOADS
635,000+
TO DATE
ARTICLE
INDEXING
237,000+
TO DATE
DOI
ASSIGNMENT
121,000+
TO DATE
BHL offers a range of free services
API &
DATA
EXPORTS
TAXONOMIC
NAME
SEARCHING
REFERENCE
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
*Stats as of October 2017

17. “BHL provides access to literature that would
otherwise be impossible to find or even know
that it existed. It is important to have access to
a biodiversity library that has done so well to
document the past, as this is vital to our
understanding of the future.”
Dean Janiak
Biologist
Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce

18. “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

19. “BHL is fantastic! It has made a huge
difference in my work - sometimes
providing access to texts I wouldn’t
otherwise be able to get, sometimes by
giving me the gift of my own time...”
Dr. Leigh Anne Riedman
NASAAstrobiology PostdoctoralFellow
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Harvard University

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

22. Thank You!
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Twitter @ UDCMRK