1. Biodiversity Heritage Library:
Disseminating Content Beyond the Silo
Bianca Crowley
Collections Coordinator

2. http://biodiversitylibrary.org
Now online
61,401 titles
116,078 volumes
41.2 million pages

3. • New user interface launched in March
• Search by title, author, article, subjects and scientific
names
• Various download options, even high resolution
• Taxonomic name finding algorithm
• Machine-to-machine services
BHL Overview

4. • Open access
• Open data
• Deconstruct the silo and deliver content where users
are already working
– Via other biodiversity websites and taxonomic resources
– Via social media platforms like our blog, flickr, Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, &etc.
• Involve users in collection and technical development
activities
Core Principles

5. Core BHL Member Institutions
Now online
6900+ titles
18,000 volumes
7 million+ pages

6. Global Partners

8. General feedback form Scan request form
http://biodiversitylibrary.org/contact

9. Beyond the Silo: Open Data
Amblyopsis
Formica sanguinea
Trifolium pratense
On the Origin of Species
By Charles Darwin
(1859)
Bibliographic data for 61,000+ titles
Scientific name data for 150 million+taxa
Dear , , ,
Free data. Come and get it!
-BHL

10. Beyond the Silo: Open Data
Open Data
Policy
APIs
Application
Programming
Interfaces
Stable
URLs
OAI-PMH
Open Archive
Initiative –
Protocol for
Metadata
Harvesting
Data
Exports

11. Beyond the Silo: Open Data

12. Beyond the Silo: Social Media
@BioDivLibrary
www.facebook.co
m/BioDivLibrary
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org
http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets
pinterest.com/biodivlibrary

13. Impact
• “BHL came to the rescue when a planned trip to work in the Mertz Library at The New
York Botanical Garden had to be cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. Thanks to the online
resources available through BHL I was able to source most of the key works I needed,
with their supporting bibliographic information. Further use of BHL occurred when
building work at the Linnean Society of London limited access to some of the book I had
been able to use from that collection."
• “I would like thank you all very much for invaluable work and support you do. I just got a
pdf-file from more than century old (1893) journal paper (regional naturalist society
paper, published in Finland), to get copy I should take 500 mile drive to our university
library. Now I am got it fastly in high-quality pdf-copy. Cordial thanks and all success in
continuing your highly valuable mission.” [conservation biologist from Estonia]
• “You are a wonderful resource. I maintain a Website that describes the plant genus
Opuntia (prickly pear cacti). There is no way I could maintain such a site without access to
literature from 100-200 years ago. Most of the cactus species were discovered long ago; I
find it invaluable to put up PDF files to document each species in the literature as I
document them photographically. I am a botanist, but I work in the pharmaceutical field
(not so many botanical jobs out there). Your library makes it possible for me to continue
working with plants in a meaningful and scientific manner.”

14. Thank you
http://biodiversitylibrary.org
Bianca Crowley, crowleyb@si.edu