The Biodiversity Heritage Library & Botany: Empowering Discovery through Free Access to Biodiversity Knowledge. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Botany 2018. Rochester, MN. 24 July 2018.

1. The Biodiversity Heritage
Library & Botany
Empowering Discovery through Free Access to
Biodiversity Knowledge
Martin R. Kalfatovic
BHLProgDirector@Twitter
24 July 2018 | Botany 2018

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

3. 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

4. “BHL has made available rare and unique
publications from the 18th and 19th century,
much needed for my research, that I cannot
find in The Netherlands. In a word,
BHL helps me progress.”
Eulàlia Gassó Miracle
Curator of Butterflies
Naturalis Biodiversity Center

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

6. The Biodiversity Heritage Library
(www.biodiversitylibrary.org) is an open access digital
library for biodiversity literature and archives.

7. Inspiring Discovery through Free Access
to Biodiversity Knowledge
11+ 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.

8. BHL is a Global Consortium
20MEMBERS
AS OF JULY 2018
21AFFILIATES
80+ WORLDWIDE PARTNERS

9. *As of July 2018
MEMBERS
• American Museum of Natural History Library
• BHL Australia
• BHL México
• Cornell University Library
• Field Museum of Natural History Library
• Harvard University Botany Libraries
• Harvard University, Museum of Comparative
Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library
• Library of Congress
• The LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New York
Botanical Garden
• Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven
Library
• Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
• Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle
• National Library Board, Singapore
• Natural History Museum Library, London
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Library, Art &
Archives
• Smithsonian Libraries
• United States Department of Agriculture, National
Agricultural Library
• University Library, University of Illinois Urbana-
Champaign
• University of Toronto Libraries
• Yale University

10. *As of July 2018
AFFILIATES
• Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel
University, Library and Archives
• BHL Africa
• BHL China
• BHL Egypt
• BHL SciELO (Brazil)
• Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire -
Lausanne
• California Academy of Sciences Library
• Canadian Museum of Nature
• Chicago Botanic Garden, Lenhardt Library
• Internet Archive
• Lloyd Library & Museum
• Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden
• Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution Library (MBLWHOI
Library)
• Mendel Museum
• Narodni Museum (National Museum, Prague)
• Natural History Museum Los Angeles County
• Naturalis Biodiversity Center
• Oak Spring Garden Foundation
• Smithsonian Institution Archives
• United States Geological Survey Libraries
Program
• University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg

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

12. 54+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
138,000+ 229,000+
183+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
770+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 340+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of July 2018

13. 54+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
138,000+ 229,000+
183+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
770+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 340+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of July 2018

14. Permissions for In Copyright Material

15. CUSTOM PDF
DOWNLOADS
734,000+
TO DATE
ARTICLE
INDEXING
262,000+
TO DATE
DOI
ASSIGNMENT
130,000+
TO DATE
BHL offers a range of free services
API &
DATA
EXPORTS
TAXONOMIC
NAME
SEARCHING
REFERENCE
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
*Stats as of July 2018

16. Technical Advisory Group
BHL Technical Update
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

17. New Service: Full Text Search!
Search across the text of all 54+ million pages in BHL!
Search results now display hits for search terms within both
the bibliographic information + the full text of books in BHL.
Filter search results by content type, publication date, subject,
language, and author with new faceted browsing.
Use “search inside” to search for terms within a book you
are viewing.

18. BHL Tech Update
BHL Dark Storage:
Smithsonian
• Year 1 (2016) BHL: 109 TB
• Year 2 (2017) BHL: 122 TB
• Year 3 (2018) BHL: 135 TB
• Year 4 (2019) BHL: 148 TB
• Year 5 (2020) BHL: 162 TB

19. APIs
The BHL Application Programming Interface (API)
is a set of REST-like web services that can be
invoked via HTTP queries (GET/POST requests) or
SOAP. Responses can be received in one of three
formats: JSON, XML, or XML wrapped in a SOAP
envelope.
Data Exports
BHL provides custom data exports, as well as
exports that easily integrate with reference
management applications like EndNote, Zotero or
Mendeley.
Scientific Names
BHL uses taxonomic intelligence tools, including
Global Names Recognition and Discovery (GNRD)
developed by Global Names Architecture, to
locate, verify, and record scientific names located
within the text of each digitized page. This
names-based index is an incredibly valuable tool
for organismal research, and is easily
incorporated into external web sites through two
different methods of access.

20. TheMachineIsUs/ingUs
<Response
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-
instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Status>ok</Status>
<Result>
<Item>
<ItemID>16800</ItemID>
<Volume/>
<Contributor>MBLWHOI Library</Contributor>
<Sponsor>MBLWHOI Library</Sponsor>
<Language>English</Language>
<LicenseUrl/>
<Rights/>
<DueDiligence/>
<CopyrightStatus/>
<CopyrightRegion/>
</Item>

21. BHL Technical Update
Server Architecture

22. BHL V.2 Schematic

23. Darwin
VIAF ID: 27063124
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882

24. Charles Darwin’s Library
biodiversitylibrary.org/browse/collection/darwinlibrary
___________________
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.
"If this
were true,
adios
theory"

25. Charles Darwin’s Library
biodiversitylibrary.org/browse/collection/darwinlibrary
___________________
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.
"If this
were true,
adios
theory"

26. 7+MILLION
TOTAL USERS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
USERS117,000+
14+ MILLION
TOTAL WEBSITE VISITS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
VISITS207,000+
VISITS FROM
243COUNTRIES &
TERRITORIES
*Stats as of July 2018

27. Growth of BHL Users

28. Growth of BHL Users

29. 100,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
19,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
15,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
47,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
5,700+
AVERAGE MONTHLY
READERS (CY18)
3,000+
FOLLOW @BIODIVLIBRARY
*Stats as of July 2018
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
16,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
2,000+

30. 124,000+
IMAGES IN FLICKR
TOTAL IMAGES
TAGGED39,000+
333+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 July 2018
WWW.FLICKR.COM/BIODIVLIBRARY

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

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35. BHL & Botany

36. Members
• New York Botanical Garden
• Missouri Botanical Garden
• Harvard Botany Libraries
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Affiliates
• Chinese Academy of Sciences | Institute of Botany
• Chicago Botanic Garden
• Lloyd Library & Museum
• Oak Spring Garden Foundation
• Singapore Botanic Gardens
• South African National Biodiversity Institute
• State Botanical Collections, Victoria (Melbourne)
July 2018
BHL & Botany
Major Botany Contributors

37. BHL & Botany
Expanding Access to Biodiversity
Literature
• Andersen Arboretum, Andersen
Horticultural Library
• Arkansas Native Plant Society
• Atlanta History Center, Cherokee
Garden Library
• Brooklyn Botanic Garden
• Butler University
• California Native Plant Society
(Bristlecone, East Bay, Kern County,
Monterey Bay, Mount Lassen, and
Santa Cruz Chapters)
• Cleveland Botanical Garden, Eleanor
Squire Library
• Delaware Native Plant Society
• Denver Botanic Gardens
• Desert Botanical Garden
• Finger Lakes Native Plant Society
• Idaho Native Plant Society
• Illinois Native Plant Society
• International Bulb Society
• LA County Arboretum & Botanical
Garden
• Long Island Botanical Society
• Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
• New York Academy of Medicine
• Northern California Botanists
• Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
• Seed Savers Exchange
• Southern California Botanists
• Tower Hill Botanic Garden
• UC Berkeley, University and Jepson
Herbaria
August 2016

38. 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

39. 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

40. “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, as I don’t have to spend hours or
days tracking down a resource, waiting on
interlibrary loan, and then either scanning it for text
recognition and translation or typing it into a
translator piece-meal.”
Dr. Leigh Anne Riedman
NASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Harvard University

41. “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, as I don’t have to spend hours or
days tracking down a resource, waiting on
interlibrary loan, and then either scanning it for text
recognition and translation or typing it into a
translator piece-meal.”
Dr. Leigh Anne Riedman
NASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Harvard University

42. "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

43. The study of biodiversity is far and away the most important
endeavor in the history of humanity, certainly until now, and very
possibly into the future as well .... We are building the card
catalog for the most important library that has ever existed, and
ever will exist (at least from the perspective of humans).
Richard L. Pyle, Bishop Museum (2010)

44. Thank You!
Questions?
Martin R. Kalfatovic
BHL Program Director
24 July 2018 | Botany 2018