The Biodiversity Heritage Library

Martin R. KalfatovicSmithsonian Libraries

Biodiversity Heritage LibraryFulbright Academy Open Board Meeting

15 February 02013 | Washington, DC

UDCMRK@Twitter.com

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

Charles Darwin, et al (1847)

The Wherefore of BHL

Specimen collections

Databases

Publications

Observations

‘Gray’ literature

Index cards

Field notebooks

Taxonomic Impediment

Technology Library Science

Biodiversity Heritage Library

15 Member institutions …Formed in 2006

15 Members•Academy of Natural Sciences Library and Archives•American Museum of Natural History Library•California Academy of Sciences Library•Cornell University Library•The Field Museum Library•Harvard University Botany Libraries•Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology•Library of Congress•Marine Biological Laboratory and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Library•Missouri Botanical Garden Library•Natural History Museum, London, Library & Archives •The New York Botanical Garden•Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, Library & Archives•Smithsonian Institution Libraries•United States Geological Survey Libraries

Secretariat and Technical StaffAugust 2011Program Director

Program ManagerCollections Coordinator

Technical DirectorProgrammerData Analyst

40,329,911pages111,310 items58,210 titles

11 February 2013

Content Growth2007-2013

Cornell ingest | Dec 201114,45814,458

Items Added: Past 12 Months

Average: 1,204 / month

User Statistics: 2007 - 2012Visitors: 3,628,088Page Views: 17,604,395New vs. Returning: 48.88% vs. 50.12%

2007

2012112,584 visitors | March 2012

233 countriesUsers in 233 Countries

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Increase agreements with publishers of in copyright materials

(up from ~250)

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Images (JP2)PDFCoordinate-based OCRXML metadata

BHL Architecture: Window Seat Ed.

BHL DBBHL DB

Internet ArchiveInternet Archive

Storage

Logic

APIsAPIs UIUI DataExportsData

Exports

Access

Data TransformUtilities

Data TransformUtilities

GeocodingGeocoding

Name FindingName

Finding

The Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2006

Experiment with taxonomic markup

Smithsonian Contributions and Studies SeriesCollaboration with Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press1,000+ titles; 100,000 pages

3.8 million total views | 63,000 images (13 Feb 13)

233 countriesUsers in 233 Countries

June 2012

Over 30 librarians, scientists, informaticians gathered in Cape Town, South Africa to start the formation of the BHL Africa node; funded by JRS Foundation

Trish Rose-Sandler, Missouri Botanical GardenDLF Forum 2012 Denver CO Art of Life project

FacebookTotal Page Likes: 4,384

Twitter @ BioDivLibraryTotal Followers: 2,369

Pinterest2,373 images & 16 collections

BlogTotal Visits: 9,096(2Q13)

BHL Social MediaFebruary 2013

Outreach

“Thank you much for your help. It is so useful as I am right now working on the fishes of Ganges. Moreover it is so great that the library provides classic literature on fishes and it was a dream to me [when] I started my taxonomy ten years back. It is marvellous [what] you did for us which are badly in need of old literature. Thanks a lot.”“Thank you much for your help. It is so useful as I am right now working on the fishes of Ganges. Moreover it is so great that the library provides classic literature on fishes and it was a dream to me [when] I started my taxonomy ten years back. It is marvellous [what] you did for us which are badly in need of old literature. Thanks a lot.”

What an absolutely wonderful site. It is a treasure trove of information. Thank you!

May I compliment you on this splendid service? The Library's invaluable for my work on seasonal

variability of climate and vector-borne disease in British India, 1875-1940.

I really appreciate your work. The Biodiversity Heritage Library is an excellent resource that regularly helps my assistant and I obtain original descriptions for plants .... I feel so privileged to be working in a day in age when such resources are so readily available and easy to obtain.

Looking Forward

In any well-appointed Natural History Library there should be found every book and every edition of every book dealing in the remotest way with the subjects concerned.

Charles Davies Sherborn Epilogue to Index Animalium, March 1922

Thanks … Questions and Discussion