co-creating global natural history networks

@b0ja @FabLadyB @coniferr @BioDivLibrary @BHLEurope #BHLib #DISH2011

Co-creating Global Natural History Networks

Boris JacobRoyal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium

[email protected] Bianca Crowley

Biodiversity Heritage Library, Smithsonian Institution, [email protected]

Constance RinaldoErnst Mayr Library/MCZ/Harvard University, USA

[email protected] Conference 2011 The Netherlands http://www.dish2011.nl/


Overview

• 3 Ideas from Yesterday• What is Biodiversity Heritage Literature• About

– Biodiversity Heritag Library (BHL)– Biodiversity Heritag Library for Europe (BHL-Europe)– Global Biodiversity Heritag Library (gBHL)

• Communication strategy and tools

• What can you/we do?


3 Ideas from Yesterday

• DISH is not only presenting, but questioning, talk to people, make judgements on what is relevant for your institution.– Chris Batt, DISH 2011 Opening Speech

• Speed of change makes research on the job impossible. Make informed choices with the best possible information today. – Katherine Watson, DISH 2011 Keynote Speech

• Thinking for ourselfs as networks, movement, ideology, rather than institutions.– Charles Leadbeater, DISH 2011 Keynote Speech


Biodiversity Heritage Literature

• Huge amount of out of copyright works to scan• Heterogeneous

– Text types (Scientific literature, Exhibition reports...)– Audiences (Scientists, Humanities, Artists, Education, ...)– Media (Print Text, Illustrations Photographs, Annotations,

...)– Form (Oversize, Fold-outs, ...)


• Example 1• Scientific descriptions of

animals, plants, nature in general (Taxonomic literature)

• Type in a taxon name and find all detected occurrences in the text corpus.


• Example 2• Literature on expeditions

– Research on cultural practices.

– Natural history in cultural contexts.

– Scientific understanding of nature over time.

• Search in Darwin’s Library.


• Example 3• Illustrations of Nature

– History of scientific illustrations.

– Research on one artists work.

– Inspiration for artists.– Cool dinosaur and

skeleton pictures.• Find illustrations on Flickr.


BHL in a Nutshell

• Over 36 million digitised pages and counting, page level access.

• Connection to taxonomic names via uBio & connection to EOL species pages.

• Open data services - BHL makes available: – All book, or bibliographic, data– All taxonomic name data– for free to download, re-use, re-purpose, and re-mix by anyone,

anywhere

• User engagement, interaction, feedback.• A Portal, Darwin library, the article repository Citebank,

Develper tools, API, OpenURL.


www.biodiversitylibrary.org


BHL-Europe in a Nutshell

• European biodiversity knowledge freely available globally to everyone.

• 28 partner institutions and companies• Mobilising and preserving digital European biodiversity

heritage literature and facilitating the open access to this literature through a multilingual community portal – the Global References Index to Biodiversity– the Biodiversity Library Exhibition– and Europeana.


www.bhl-europe.eu


Comparing BHL and BHL-Europe

BHL (US/UK)

• Emphasis on scanning• Cultural and language

similarities• Mostly private funding

initially• Librarian/Scientist

partnership at start• Integration of scientific

names services

BHL-Europe

• Emphasis on aggregation• Multicultural and

multilingual setting• EC funding• Scientist driven• Multilingual portal,

integration of various names services (e.g. common names)


gBHL in a Nutshell

• BHL nodes in Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, Europe, USA, more to come

• A distributed network with different countries, different cultures, different institutions/projects/organisational models, different policies, different partnerships, different funding

• Staff working within the gBHL– works in 9 different time zones– in nearly 50 different institutions worldwide– speak over 10 different languages– technologists, scientists, and librarians– most are not BHL (US) employees• No institutional mandate, Regional governance, bottom up

development• One Mission


gBHL Mission


Communication Strategy

• Know your mission, share your vision• Forget about hierarchy • Open up all lines of communication• Encourage trial-and-error problem solving• Share best practices, technologies, workloads• Empower decision making at all levels• Welcome all ideas • Foster excitement and dedication• Trust each other to do what is best for the project• Be flexible• Reward experimentation and creativity• Failures are simply lessons learned


Communication Tools

• Skype, Wikis, Email, Phone, Issue tracking systems, Twitter, Slideshare, Blogs, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Chat, Google docs, Google calendar, Whiteboards, Photos, Videos, Posters, Presentations, Papers, Tutorials, Documentation, Doodle, Meetings, GitHub, Google code, and Face-to-face communication whenever we can get it.


Communication Tools

• What we need to make the tools work: Moderators, Mediators, Committees, Cheerleaders, Praise, Passion, Patience, Criticism, Cooperation, Being proactive, Flexibility, Time, Prioritization, Funding, Institutional support, Creativity, Rapid prototyping approach


Pros & Cons

• People feel free to contribute

• Rapid rollout• Sharing of

– Content– Knowledge– Ideas– Technology

• Funding is uncertain• Staffing is uncertain• Mistakes are made• Time intensive• Timezones


What can you/we do?• Donate, Contribute content• Spread the word, Lobby government agencies and

policy makers for support• Provide feedback, Participate in crowdsourcing

initiatives

Photographs by R. Paul Skeehan (skee 2 http://www.flickr.com/people/70355584@N08

co-creating global natural history networks

Technology

bhleurope bhl usuk emphasis

different funding staff

different cultures

different policies

different countries

different partnerships

nutshell bhl nodes

open data services bhl