Overview and Introduction: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. National University of Singapore. Singapore. 10 February 2014.

1. Overview & Introduction to
The Biodiversity Heritage Library
Martin R. Kalfatovic | BHL Program Director | Smithsonian Libraries
NAS/PLS/NL/NParks/NUS | Singapore | February 2014

2. Welcome!
Selamat Datang!
欢迎 !
நலவரவ!

3. The Wherefore of BHL
The cultivation of
natural science cannot
be efficiently carried
on without reference
to an extensive library
Charles Darwin, et al
(1847)

4. Taxonomic Impediment
Specimen collections
Databases
Publications
Observations
‘Gray’ literature
Index cards
Field notebooks

7. Members … Washington University is #14
14 Members
• American Museum of Natural History
• California Academy of Sciences
Library
• Cornell University 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
• The New York Botanical Garden
• Royal Botanic Garden, Kew
• Smithsonian Institution Libraries
• United States Geological Survey
Libraries
• Washington University of St. Louis

8. Affiliates
Affiliates
Academy of Natural
Sciences Philadelphia at
Drexel University
The Field Museum Library
Newest Affiliate:

9. Secretariat and Technical Staff
August 2011 Director
Program
Program Manager
Collections Coordinator
Technical Director
Programmer
Data Analyst

10. BHL Institutional Council | Woods Hole | May 2013

12. Biodiversity Heritage Library
Global BHL Steering Committee
August 2011
Chair
Global Goverance
Vice Chair
Secretary

14. Biodiversity Heritage Library
Technology
Library
Science

15. Problems of Mass Digitization of Library Materials

17. BHL Architecture: Window Seat Ed.
Access
APIs
APIs
UI
UI
Data
Data
Exports
Exports
Logic
Name
Name
Finding
Finding
BHL DB
BHL DB
Data Transform
Data Transform
Utilities
Utilities
Storage
Images (JP2)
PDF
Coordinate-based OCR
XML metadata
Internet Archive
Internet Archive
Firewall
Firewall
Geocoding
Geocoding

18. Scanning Operations: Macaw

19. Content Growth
2007-2014
42,498,407 pages
130,484 volumes
71,945 titles
4 February 201

20. Increase agreements
with publishers of in
copyright materials
US Titles: 249
UK Titles: 69
TOTAL TITLES: 318
US Licensors: 92
UK Licensors: 41
TOTAL LICENSORS: 133
October 2013

21. Mass digitization of Smithsonian Libraries collections aligns
Problems of Library Metadata
with the overall Smithsonian digitization strategy and remains a
center of excellence for rapid digitization at the SI

23. User Statistics: 2007 - 2013
Visitors: 3,628,088
Page Views: 17,604,395
New vs. Returning: 50.06% vs. 49.04%
146,798 visitors | November 2012
2007
2013

24. Singapore ranks 33rd in
visitorship by CITIES, about the
same as
San Francisco
233233 Countries
countries
Users in

25. TheMachineIsUs/ingUs
<Response
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchemainstance"
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>

26. Field Notes and Transcriptions
FIELD NOTES AND TRANSCRIPTION

27. 24+ million total views | 87K + images (Feb 14)

29. Facebook
Total Page Likes:
6,587
Pinterest
3,764 images & 17 collections
BHL Social Media
October 2013
Blog
Total Visits:36,208
(FY13)
Twitter @ BioDivLibrary
Total Followers: 3,095

30. BHL Europe. Final Events, Berlin, 4-6 June 2012
Smithsonian Libraries and BHL, Mae Jemison Science Reading Room. Pretoria,
South Africa. 11 June 2012 [presentation]
BHL African Meeting, Cape Town, South Africa, June 14-15 2012
BHL Staff and Technical Meeting, Cambridge, MA, 27-28, 2012
Internet Archive Leaders' Forum, San Francisco, CA, 24-25 October 2012
EOL Work Group Leaders Meeting. Cambridge, MA, 29-30 November 2012
JSTOR Plants Meeting, Panama City, Panama, 6-11 January 2013
Third Phenotype Ontology Research Coordination Network Annual Summit
meeting, Durham, NC, 25-27 February 2013
Fulbright Academy Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 15 February 2013
I Annotate: Annoto Ergo Sum, San Francisco, CA, 10-12 April 2013
BHL Africa Launch, Pretoria, South Africa, 15-18 April 2013
BHL Symposium. TDWG 2013. Florence, Italy. 29 October 2013.
Digitalización de literatura de Biodiversidad: an Overview of the
Biodiversity Heritage Library. CONABIO Teleconference. 29 August 2013.
International Relations Round Table, American Library Association Annual Meeting.
Chicago, IL, 28 June 2013.
3rd International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives.
Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco. 30 May 2013.
4th Global BHL Meeting. Fes, Morocco. 27 May 2013.

31. Awards




2013 ComputerWorld Award
2013 Council of Botanical and
Horticulture Libraries
2011 Thackray Medal by the Society for
the History of Natural History
2010 ALCTS award for outstanding
collaboration

32. 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
T
British India, 1875-1940.
h
a
n
k
I really appreciatey your work. The Biodiversity Heritage
Library is an excellent resource that regularly helps my
o
u
assistant and I obtain original descriptions for plants .... I
feel so privileged m be working in a day in age when such
to
u
resources are so readily available and easy to obtain.
c
h
f
o
r
y
What an absolutely owonderful site.
u
It is a treasure trove of information.
r
Thank you!
h
e

33. BHL Africa Launch | Pretoria | April 2013
DLF Forum 2012 Denver CO
Trish Rose-Sandler, Missouri Botanical Garden
Art of Life project

37. 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

38. 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

40. Thank you!
Terima Kasih!
谢谢您 !
நனற !