Martin R. Kalfatovic is the Program Director of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), which is a global consortium that makes biodiversity literature openly available online. Over the past 10 years, BHL has digitized over 51 million pages from over 114,000 titles. It provides free access to biodiversity literature from the 15th-21st centuries and receives on average over 100,000 users per month from around the world. BHL aims to improve research methodology by making this historical literature openly accessible and searchable online.

1. Martin R. Kalfatovic
Twitter@BHLProgDirector
Program Director
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Smithsonian Libraries
Empowering Global
Research in Biodiversity The
Biodiversity Heritage Library
BHL Open Day Symposium
16 March 2017| Singapore Botanic Garden

2. Selamat Pagi!
Good morning!
காலை வணக்கம்!
早上好！

3. “The cultivation of natural
history cannot be efficiently
carried out without reference to
an extensive library.”
Charles Darwin, et al (1847)

4. Extensive. Open. Global

5. Inspiring Discovery through Free Access
to Biodiversity Knowledge
Over 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.

6. A global project that encompasses
Technology Libraries Science

7. Biodiversity then …

8. 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

9. Extensive. Open. Global

10. “Last year I threw down the gauntlet to [BHL staff] and asked if
there was any possibility of BHL arranging to have made available
the entire run of the UK periodical The Gardeners' Chronicle. I
asked because there is nowhere in my country of residence
(Denmark) that holds it, requiring that I make time consuming and
expensive research trips to London or Cambridge in the UK should I
wish to examine the periodical. I was amazed and delighted that
BHL has achieved what I asked. This contribution to the BHL
catalogue has been a real boon to my research.”
Dr. Toby Musgrave
Horticulturalist & Botanist
Lecturer, Danish Institute for Study Abroad
EXTENSIVE

11. “Biologists are
inclined to agree
that it [biodiversity]
is in one sense
everything”
E.O. Wilson

12. BHL can’t have
everything, but we
try to include as
much as possible!

13. 51+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
114,000+ 194,000+
173+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
578+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 250+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of February 2017

15. Systema naturae
per regna tria
naturae.
Ed. 10, 1758.
Carl von Linné.
biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/542
___________________
Considered the starting
point of zoological
nomenclature.
Listed about 10,000
species of organisms, of
which about 6,000 are
plants and 4,236 are
animals.
The earliest work in BHL is
Theophrasti De Historia plantarum liber primus
(1483)
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40913187

16. Not just “heritage”
collections
> 23% of BHL's collection of
188,970 items is post-1922
> 72.3% of BHL’s collection is
free of copyright restriction in
the United States
As of August 2016

17. Logbook of the
yacht "France"
Whitney South Sea
Expedition of the American
Museum of Natural History
Volume: v.2 (1926-1928)
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44821245
__________________
BHL includes over 100,000
pages of Field Notes and
related archival material.
Ongoing transcription projects
will make these fully
searchable.

18. Bonn Zoological
Bulletin 61 (1): 135-
39 (July 2012)
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4482124
___________________
With the assistance of
BioStor, BHL now indexes
over 202,000 articles,
chapters or other “segments”
of BHL content.
These are all searchable
through the bibliographic
interface to BHL.
Scotopteryx kuznetzovi
(Wardikian, 1957)
(Lepidoptera, Geometridae,
Larentiinae),
a new species for the fauna of
Iran and Turkey
Hossein Rajaei Sh.* & Dieter
Stuning

19. Charles Darwin’s Library
biodiversitylibrary.org/browse/collection/darwi
nlibrary
___________________
A digital edition and virtual
reconstruction of the surviving
books owned by Charles Darwin.
It also provides full transcriptions of
his annotations and marks. These
works provide important insight into
the development of Darwin’s ideas
on evolution and natural selection.
"If this were true, adios theory"
Charles Darwin wrote these words
in response to reading Principles of
Geology, v. 2 (1837) by Charles
Lyell, who was arguing that changes
in species have limitations. Darwin,
on the other hand, argued that
changes in species are infinite and
continuous, an integral concept
crucial to his theory of evolution.

20. “[BHL] is a fantastic resource, making research possible
that would never have been considered in the past. I use it
to find information on particular species and also to find
source documents for further analysis. The ability to
search by taxon name is invaluable.”
Dr. Quentin Groom
Research Assistant and Biogeographer
Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium
OPEN

21. 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

22. CUSTOM PDF
DOWNLOADS
517,000+
TO DATE
ARTICLE
INDEXING
202,000+
TO DATE
DOI
ASSIGNMENT
104,000+
TO DATE
BHL offers a range of free services
API &
DATA
EXPORTS
TAXONOMIC
NAME
SEARCHING
REFERENCE
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
*Stats as of November 2016

24. Agatea violaris
Type specimen from the
U.S. National Herbarium
(Smithsonian Institution)
collected by the United
States Exploring
Expedition, 1838-1842

25. Agatea violaris
Type specimen from the
U.S. National Herbarium
(Smithsonian Institution)
collected by the United
States Exploring
Expedition, 1838-1842
Illustration from the USExEx

26. Species Description from the USExEx

29. “Congratulations on a superior on-line library service that is of
great help to anybody that has no direct access to old literature
(like many scientists in developing countries). I used to be
located in the Natural History Museum in Leiden, Netherlands
with an excellent library, but after my retirement I moved to
Brazil and lost direct contact with the Leiden library. In many
cases BHL now provides what I am looking for.”
Dr. Marinus Hoogmoed
Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians, 1963-2003
Naturalis Biodiversity Center
GLOBAL

30. BHL is a Global Consortium
18MEMBERS
AS OF MARCH 2017
15AFFILIATES
60+ WORLDWIDE PARTNERS

31. 1. London
2. New York
3. Mexico City
4. Paris
5. Sydney
6. Berlin
7. Washington
8. Melbourne
9. New Delhi
10. Sao Paulo
Top 10 Cities by Sessions, CY 2016

32. 1. Bangkok
2. Quezon City
3. Singapore
4. Jakarta
5. Hanoi
6. Makati
7. Kuala Lumpur
8. Cebu City
9. Ho Chi Minh City
10. Surabaya
Top 10 ASEAN Cities by Sessions, CY 2016

33. 5.9+MILLION
TOTAL USERS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
USERS (CY16)109,000+
11+ MILLION
TOTAL WEBSITE VISITS TO DATE
AVERAGE MONTHLY
VISITS (CY16)176,000+
VISITS FROM
243COUNTRIES &
TERRITORIES
*Stats as of February 2017

34. 124,295 users
February 2016
CY 2016
2.123m sessions
1.162m users
96,862 users/month
2007-2016

35. 8.51% sessions
Mobile Sessions CY 2015
10.45% sessions
Mobile Sessions CY 2016
Mobile sessions increase by 34.43% over the past year

36. “BHL is radically changing the status quo and
democratizing access to knowledge about
biodiversity. Now anyone in the world has
instant access to the original species
description in a couple of clicks.”
Dr. John Sullivan
Evolutionary Biologist
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
Cornell University
GLOBAL &
COLLABORATIVE

37. BHL collaborates with and contributes
content to a variety of partners…

38. BHL collaborates with and contributes
content to a variety of partners…
Two more recent collaboration opportunities

39. Engagement
BHL is used in exhibitions in our
partner institutions, such as “Once
There Were Billions” at the National
Museum of Natural History.

40. “BHL provides an excellent service for studies
of marine and other biodiversity. I’ve said it
before, you folks do a great job. Keep up the
good work; you’ve got lots of admirers out
there.”
Dr. Thomas Carefoot
Marine Biologist
University of British Columbia, Canada
Expanding Directions

41. 107,000+
IMAGES IN FLICKR
TOTAL IMAGES
TAGGED29,900+
202+MILLION
TOTAL VIEWS ON IMAGES
OF TOTAL FLICKR
COLLECTION TAGGED
TAGGED IMAGES IN
EOL
27% 18,000+
BHL FLICKR NAMED 1 OF WIRED’S
27 MUST-FOLLOW FEEDS IN
THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
*Stats as of November 2016
WWW.FLICKR.COM/BIODIVLIBRARY

42. Engage with audiences

43. Support BHL Financial Sustainability
CafePress: http://www.cafepress.com/biodiversityheritagelibrary

44. 64,500+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
11,800+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
11,400+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
32,300+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
5,000+
AVERAGE MONTHLY
READERS (CY16)
2,300+
FOLLOW @BIODIVLIBRARY
*Stats as of February 2017
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
4,000+

45. 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

46. “Joining BHL represents a greater opportunity for CONABIO
to provide broader access to Mexico’s biodiversity knowledge
contained within published literature. We believe that only
with a well-informed society it is possible to develop and
strengthen a culture of appreciation and valuation of
Mexico’s natural capital.”
Dr. José Sarukhán
CONABIO National Coordinator
Mexico City, Mexico
In Closing …

48. A Larger Context …
Supporting the Convention on Biodiversity

49. A Larger Context …
Convention on Biodiversity (CBD Article 17, 1992)
“It shall also, where feasible, include repatriation of
information.”

50. A Larger Context …
Darwin Declaration (1998)
“The essential requirements for accessing and utilising this
global information are: that existing information held in literature
and by current experts is made available electronically”

51. A Larger Context …
The Biodiversity Commons
BHL strives to be part of that larger Biodiversity Commons and
provide a space for the literature of biodiversity to be widely
available

52. The Commons succeeds when,
among other elements, there is
"the presence of a community;
small and stable populations
with a thick social network and
social norms".
Elinor Ostrom, "Sustainable development and the
tragedy of commons" (2009)

53. BHL has created that community
among our natural history and
botanical libraries

54. By engaging with the larger biodiversity
community, by being a cornerstone of
the “biodiversity conmons,” and major
stakeholder institutions, BHL is creating
a sustainable biodiversity commons for
the literature of taxonomy.

55. Specimens, data, publications...

59. The Sixth Extinction
The "normal" rate of extinction is one species every
four years.
Today, species are going extinct at a rate of FOUR per
HOUR.

60. Terima kasih
Thank you
நன்றி
谢谢