The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a collaborative project involving 15 member institutions aimed at improving access to biodiversity literature. As of February 2013, BHL has grown to 40,329,911 pages and 111,310 items, facilitating substantial user engagement with over 3.6 million visitors since its inception. The library represents a crucial resource for natural science research and has expanded its partnerships with publishers to enhance its collection of copyrighted materials.

1. The Biodiversity Heritage Library
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Smithsonian Libraries
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Fulbright Academy Open Board Meeting
15 February 02013 | Washington, DC
UDCMRK@Twitter.com

2. 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

5. Biodiversity Heritage Library
Technology Library Science

7. 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

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

9. Content Growth
2007-2013
40,329,911pages
111,310 items
58,210 titles
11 February 201

10. Items Added: Past 12 Months
Cornell ingest | Dec 2011
14,458
Average: 1,204 / month

11. User Statistics: 2007 - 2012
Visitors: 3,628,088
Page Views: 17,604,395
New vs. Returning: 48.88% vs. 50.12%
112,584 visitors | March 2012
2012
2007

12. 233233 Countries
Users in countries

13. TheMachineIsUs/ingUs
<Response
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-
instance"
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>

14. Increase agreements with
publishers of in copyright materials
(up from ~250)

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

17. The Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2006

20. Experiment with taxonomic markup
Smithsonian Contributions
and Studies Series
Collaboration with Smithsonian
Institution Scholarly Press
1,000+ titles; 100,000 pages

21. 3.8 million total views | 63,000 images (13 Feb 13)

24. 233233 Countries
Users in countries

25. 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

26. DLF Forum 2012 Denver CO Trish Rose-Sandler, Missouri Botanical Garden Art of Life project

27. Facebook
Total Page Likes:
4,384
Pinterest
2,373 images & 16 collections
BHL Social Media
February 2013
Blog
Total Visits: 9,096
(2Q13)
Twitter @ BioDivLibrary
Total Followers: 2,369

28. Outreach

29. 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
h British India, 1875-1940.
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.
It is a treasure trove of information.
u
r
Thank you! h
e

30. 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

31. Thanks … Questions and Discussion