An International Cooperative Digital Library for Taxonomic Literature: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. American Library Association Annual Meeting. Collaborative Digital Initiatives: Show and Tell and Lessons Learned. June 30, 2008. Anaheim, CA.

1. An International Cooperative Digital Library for Taxonomic Literature Martin R. Kalfatovic Smithsonian Institution Libraries 30 June 2008

7. Taxonomic Literature The cited half-life of publications in taxonomy is longer than in any other scientific discipline * * * The decay rate is longer than in any scientific discipline ~ Macro-economic case for open access Tom Moritz

8. The cultivation of natural science cannot be efficiently carried on without reference to an extensive library Charles Darwin, et al. (1847)‏ Darwin, C. R. et al. 1847. Copy of Memorial to the First Lord of the Treasury [Lord John Russell], respecting the Management of the British Museum. Parliamentary Papers, Accounts and Papers 1847 , paper number (268), volume XXXIV.253 (13 April): 1-3. [Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online]

12. Yet another physical difficulty is the task of assembling the library and indexes which will enable the student to work under proper conditions…. the beginner must now be prepared to spend liberally, or else must establish himself in an institution where a large library exists ; if he work by himself with only a few books, he will have to confine himself to a very narrow specialty indeed. 'The Limitations of Taxonomy' by J.M. Aldrich, Science , April 22, 1927, vol. LXV, no. 1686, p.381 The Taxonomic Impediment

13. Biologia Centrali-Americana Biologia Centrali-Americana Edited by Frederick Ducane Godman and Osbert Salvin London : Pub. for the editors by R. H. Porter, 1879-1915 Chart showing distribution in public collections of the complete 63 volume sets held worldwide. 2 complete copies in Central America held at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library

14. Digital Divide

15. Henry Walter Bates The Naturalist on the River Amazons , 1863 Vishwas Chavan travels a lot. An informatician based at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India, he collects data on what types of animal live where in India to enter into a biodiversity database … Much of the information Chavan seeks is in old, out-of-print tomes … To find them, Chavan has spent years trailing around libraries. He dreams of the day when books such as these are scanned and made available as digital files on the Internet. “ Science in the Web Age: The Real Death of Print” by Andreas von Bubnoff Nature 438, 550-552 1 December 2005 Digital Divide?

16. BHL Timeline 2003. Telluride. Encyclopedia of Life meeting February 2005. London. Library and Laboratory: the Marriage of Research, Data and Taxonomic Literature May 2005. Washington. Ground work for the Biodiversity Heritage Library June 2006. Washington. Organizational and Technical meeting August 2006. New York Botanical Garden. BHL Director’s Meeting. October 2006. St. Louis/San Francisco. Technical meetings February 2007. Museum of Comparative Zoology. Organizational meeting May 2007. Encyclopedia of Life and BHL Portal Launch. Washington DC.

17. BHL Members American Museum of Natural History (New York)‏ Field Museum (Chicago)‏ Natural History Museum (London)‏ Smithsonian Institution Libraries (Washington) Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis)‏ New York Botanical Garden (New York)‏ Royal Botanic Garden, Kew Botany Libraries, Harvard University Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University Marine Biological Laboratory / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

20. Encyclopedia of Life … imagine for a moment that all the diversity of the world were finally revealed and then described, say one page to a species. The description would contain the scientific name, a photograph or drawing, a brief diagnosis, and information of where the species if found. If published in conventional book form … this Great Encyclopedia of Life would occupy 60 meters of library shelf per million species … 100 million species of organisms … would extend through 6 kilometers of shelving … E.O. Wilson (1992)‏

22. OH O H 2 N OH H Informatics Marine Biological Laboratory Missouri Botanical Garden Species Pages & Secretariat Smithsonian Education and Outreach Smithsonian & Harvard Synthesis Center Field Museum

24. BHL Focus: Literature

25. BHL Focus: Literature

37. Build Content

43. Encyclopedia of Life

52. A Global Library for Life 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

59. Thank You ... now, stick around for ... Suzanne