The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) provides open access to over 61,000 titles and 41 million pages of literature about biodiversity. It has launched a new user interface with improved search and download options. BHL aims to disseminate content beyond individual institutions by making data available through APIs and partnerships with other biodiversity websites. It also engages users through social media and by involving them in development. Feedback shows BHL is an invaluable resource for researchers, conservationists, and those maintaining species databases.

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