Expanding Access for the Local and Global Increasing Access & Empowering Global Biodiversity Research through the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. 2018 Ohio Natural History Conference. Cleveland Museum of Natural History. 24 February 2018.

1. Expanding Access for the
Local and Global
Increasing Access & Empowering Global
Biodiversity Research through the Biodiversity
Heritage Library
Martin R. Kalfatovic
BHL Program Director | @BHLProgDirector
24 February 2018 | Ohio Natural History Conference
Share your thoughts on social media using
#BHLib

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. noun | tak-suh-nom-ik im-ped-uh-muh nt
Taxonomic Impediment
Much of this literature is available in
only a few select libraries in the
developed world. Lack of literature is
a major impediment to the efficiency
of scientific research.

5. “Science is all about disseminating knowledge
and building upon what has come before, yet so
much of our knowledge of plants and animals
has remained inaccessible to those who could
make use of it. This has been a big part of the
‘taxonomic impediment.’”
Dr. John Sullivan
Evolutionary Biologist
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
Cornell University

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

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

8. Inspiring Discovery through Free Access
to Biodiversity Knowledge
10+ 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.

9. BHL is a Global Consortium
19MEMBERS
AS OF FEBRUARY 2018
20AFFILIATES
80+ WORLDWIDE PARTNERS

10. *As of February 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
• 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

11. *As of February 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
• 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
• Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung
• Smithsonian Institution Archives
• United States Geological Survey Libraries
Program

12. Executive Committee
BHL GOVERNANCE
BHL Members’ Council
IMMEDIATE
PAST-CHAIR
Dr. Nancy E. Gwinn
Smithsonian Libraries
CHAIR
Constance Rinaldo
Harvard, Ernst Mayr
Library, MCZ
VICE-CHAIR
Jane Smith
Natural History
Museum, London
SECRETARY
Doug Holland
Missouri Botanical
Garden

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

14. Technical Advisory Group
BHL GOVERNANCE
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

15. FUNDING SOURCES
• Federal Funding
• Federal allocation to Smithsonian
Libraries
• Member and Affiliate Dues
• Institutional Endowments
• Grants
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Arcadia Fund
• Council on Library & Information
Resources
• Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation
• Institute of Museum & Library Services
• JRS Foundation
• MacArthur Foundation
• Mellon Foundation
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Richard Lounsbery Foundation
• Donations
• Product Development
• Institutional Subventions
• In-Kind Contributions

16. CASH & IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS
DIRECT STAFF
$1,424,792.54
VALUE
OF
MEMBER & AFFILIATE
CONTRIBUTIONS 2016
OTHER
$392,751.28
2015
VS
2016
TOTAL IN-KIND
CONTRIBUTIONS
2015
$1,358,908.20
2016
$1,817,543.82
27.26
TOTAL MEMBER &
AFFILIATE FTEs
WORKING ON BHL
IN 2016

17. 53+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
133,000+ 220,000+
181+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
750+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 330+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of February 2018

18. CUSTOM PDF
DOWNLOADS
678,000+
TO DATE
ARTICLE
INDEXING
248,000+
TO DATE
DOI
ASSIGNMENT
125,000+
TO DATE
BHL offers a range of free services
API &
DATA
EXPORTS
TAXONOMIC
NAME
SEARCHING
REFERENCE
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
*Stats as of February 2018

19. Anatomy of a BHL Book
Taxonomic Name
Recognition
Download
Options
Social Media
Tools

20. Species Bibliographies
Click on Link to
View Page
View Taxonomy Source
Information

21. 7+MILLION
TOTAL USERS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
USERS113,000+
13+ MILLION
TOTAL WEBSITE VISITS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
VISITS195,000+
VISITS FROM
243COUNTRIES &
TERRITORIES
*Stats as of February 2018

22. 93,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
16,500+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
14,500+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
43,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
5,500+
AVERAGE MONTHLY
READERS (CY17)
2,250+
FOLLOW @BIODIVLIBRARY
*Stats as of February 2018
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
12,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
1,800+

23. 122,000+
IMAGES IN FLICKR
TOTAL IMAGES
TAGGED38,000+
306+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 February 2018
WWW.FLICKR.COM/BIODIVLIBRARY

24. BHL Citizen Science Opportunities
Play a game & help correct
BHL’s Optical Character
Recognition (OCR)
smorballgame.org
beanstalkgame.org
Describe images
from 19th century
periodicals in this
Zooniverse project.
sciencegossip.org
Transcribe scientists’
fieldnotes on:
fromthepage.com
transcription.si.edu
volunteer.ala.org.au
LEARN MORE: s.si.edu/BHLGetInvolved

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

26. Smithsonian Field Book Project
• Currently funded by the Arcadia
Foundation, UK. Initiated with funding
from the Council on Library and
Information Resources and previously
supported by Smithsonian Women’s
Committee, and the National Park
Service’s Save America’s Treasures.
• Arcadia’s two-year award funded at
511,200 USD.
• Is coordinating work to catalog,
conserve and digitize scientists’ field
notes from the collections of the
Smithsonian.
• Content will be made available through
the Smithsonian’s Collection Search
Center at collections.si.edu and the
Biodiversity Heritage Library at
biodiversitylibrary.org, as well as
international aggregator sites such as
the Internet Archive and the Digital
Public Library of America.

27. Biodiversity Heritage Library
Field Notes Project
• Funded by a Digitizing Hidden Special
Collections and Archives grant from the
Council on Library and Information
Resources (CLIR)
• Two-year award for 491,713 USD.
• Collaborative effort to digitize field notes,
assign metadata, and publish online
through BHL & Internet Archive
• Lead Institutions: Smithsonian Libraries
and Smithsonian Institution Archives.
• Participating Institutions:
American Museum of Natural History;
The Field Museum of Natural History
Library; Harvard University Botany
Libraries; Harvard University, Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library;
LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New York
Botanical Garden; Missouri Botanical
Garden, Peter H. Raven Library; Museum
of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of
California, Berkeley; Yale Peabody
Museum Archives; and Internet Archive.

28. Foundations to Actions:
Extending Innovations in Digital
Libraries in Partnership with
NDSR Learners
• Digital stewardship residencies funded
by the Institute of Museum and Library
Services (IMLS). Two-years/$370,756.
• Plan and develop a next generation
digital library using the Biodiversity
Heritage Library (BHL) as a test-bed.
• 5 residents working with
geographically-distributed BHL partners
• Outcomes: best practices document on:
– Transcriptions
– Image search
– Collection analysis
– Use case/user priorities study
– Improved connections to museums, archives &
data providers
• Lead Institution: Harvard/MCZ/Ernst
Mayr Library & Museum Archives.
• Participating Institutions: Chicago
Botanic Garden, Missouri Botanical
Garden, Los Angeles County Museum
of Natural History, and Smithsonian

29. Expanding Access to
Biodiversity Literature
• Funded by the Institute of Museum and
Library Services (IMLS) in 2015 as part
of the National Leadership Grants for
Libraries program.
• Two-year award for 846,457 USD.
• EABL is helping libraries, museums,
and natural history societies make their
content more widely available by
providing the tools and support
necessary to facilitate contribution to
the Digital Public Library of America
(DPLA) through BHL.
• Lead Institution: The New York
Botanical Garden.
• Participating Institutions: Harvard
Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of
Comparative Zoology (MCZ), Missouri
Botanical Garden (MBG), and
Smithsonian Libraries (SIL).
• Progress to date: 8,159 volumes
(1,019 titles, containing over 830,000
pages); 242 in-copyright titles from 117
contributors.

30. Illustrations of the nests and eggs of birds of Ohio
Howard Jones, Genevieve Jones (illustrator), et al.
Circleville, Ohio, 1886
https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.51146
BHL and OHIO

31. Illustrations of the nests and eggs of birds of Ohio
Howard Jones, Genevieve Jones (illustrator), et al.
Circleville, Ohio, 1886
https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.51146

32. America's Other Audubon
Joy Kiser
Princeton Architectural Press, 2012
http://americasotheraudubon.com/

33. "The book was sold by
subscription in twenty-three
parts. When part one of
Genevieve's work was issued,
leading ornithologists praised
the illustrations, and Rutherford
B. Hayes and Theodore
Roosevelt added their names to
the subscription list. One
reviewer wrote: It is one of the
most beautiful and desirable
works that has ever appeared in
the United States upon any
branch of natural history and
ranks with Audubon's celebrated
work on birds." - Joy Kiser

39. Specimen notebook, Ohio, 1887-1888
Foerste, Aug. F, (Aug. Frederic) 1862-1936
https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.134006

40. Foerste was a native of Dayton, Ohio.
Like many naturalists, his early
interests in science came about from
wandering around town and taking
note of the fossils, geological
formations and stratigraphy of the local
area. He completed his bachelor's
degree at Denison University before
continuing his studies in Cambridge,
Mass. While at Harvard, Foerste also
served as part-time assistant with the
United States Geological Survey. As
part of the survey, he studied the
stratigraphy and petrography of New
England.
Adriana Marroquin
Project Manager, BHL Field Notes
Project and Smithsonian Field Book
Project
Field notes, Ohio and Indiana, circa 1914
Foerste, Aug. F, (Aug. Frederic) 1862-1936
https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.134738

41. After graduating with his Ph.D, Foesrte
would return to his hometown,
spending most of his career as a
teacher at Steele High School. During
the summer breaks, he would go out
into the field for the U.S. Geological
Survey. As part of the BHL Field Notes
Project, Smithsonian Institution
Archives has digitized many of these
notes. In 1932, he was appointed as
Associate in Paleontology for the U.S.
National Museum (now the National
Museum of Natural History) until his
death in 1936.
Adriana Marroquin
Project Manager, BHL Field Notes
Project and Smithsonian Field Book
ProjectSpecimen notebook, Ohio, 1887-1888
Foerste, Aug. F, (Aug. Frederic) 1862-1936
https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.134006

42. 53+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
133,000+ 220,000+
181+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
750+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 330+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of February 2018

43. Expanding Access to
Biodiversity Literature
• Funded by the Institute of Museum and
Library Services (IMLS) in 2015 as part
of the National Leadership Grants for
Libraries program.
• Two-year award for 846,457 USD.
• EABL is helping libraries, museums,
and natural history societies make their
content more widely available by
providing the tools and support
necessary to facilitate contribution to
the Digital Public Library of America
(DPLA) through BHL.
• Lead Institution: The New York
Botanical Garden.
• Participating Institutions: Harvard
Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of
Comparative Zoology (MCZ), Missouri
Botanical Garden (MBG), and
Smithsonian Libraries (SIL).
• Progress to date: 8,159 volumes
(1,019 titles, containing over 830,000
pages); 242 in-copyright titles from 117
contributors.

44. Ohio Coleopterists' Society
Cleveland Museum of
Natural History
Ohio Biological Survey

48. “I can more easily meet the research needs
of the Museum curators by using BHL to find
articles. One of the curators was doing
research on a specific salamander and
needed old taxonomic literature. I was able
to use BHL to find every article he needed for
his research.”
Wendy Wasman
Librarian
Cleveland Museum of Natural History

49. “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

50. 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

51. AWARDS
• Digital Library Federation (DLF) 2016
Community/Capacity Award (joint recipient with
Archive of American Broadcasting).
2016
• Internet Archive Hero Award. Global Leaders
in Sharing Knowledge.
2015
• Laureate. IDG’s Computerworld Honors
Program.
• Charles Robert Long Award of Extraordinary
Merit. Council on Botanical and Horticultural
Libraries.
2013
• Victorian Government Arts Leadership
Recognition Award (BHL Australia).
2012
• John Thackray Medal. The Society for the
History of Natural History.
2011
• Outstanding Collaboration Award. Association
for Library Collections & Technical Services
(ALCTS).
2010

52. 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

53. “BHL is doing a wonderful service for
researchers like me, who work with limited
resources in developing countries like India. I
strongly feel that if BHL would not have been
available, I would not have performed good
taxonomic work with such ease due to a lack of
historical literature.”
Dr. Varad B. Giri
Post Doctoral Fellow
National Centre for Biological Sciences
(Bangalore, India)

54. Thank You!
Questions?
Martin R. Kalfatovic
24 February 2018 | Ohio Natural History Conference
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