Increasing Access, Promoting Progress: Empowering Global Research through the BHL. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Expanding Access to Biodiversity Workshop. Atlanta History Center. Atlanta, GA. 24 January 2017.

1. Martin R. Kalfatovic
Twitter@BHLProgDirector
Program Director
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Smithsonian Libraries
Increasing Access,
Promoting Progress:
Empowering Global Research
through the BHL
Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature
January 2017| Atlanta

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

3. Extensive. Open. Global

4. 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.

5. A global project that encompasses
Libraries ScienceTechnology

6. 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

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

8. *As of January 2017
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 Geological Survey Libraries
Program
• University Library, University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign
• University of Toronto Libraries

9. *As of January 2017
AFFILIATES
• Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel
University, Library and Archives
• BHL Africa
• 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
• Smithsonian Institution Archives
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, National
Agricultural Library

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
BHL Content

11. 50+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
113,000+ 192,000+
172+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
550+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 240+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of January 2017

12. BHL includes all
levels of organismic
organization, from
genes to
ecosystems, as well
as other disciplines
affecting the study
of the biodiversity of
life on earth.

13. 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

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. 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.

17. 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

18. 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.

19. “BHL is a tremendous and extremely valuable
resource. It has done an enormous amount to
enhance the capacity of developing countries
to undertake taxonomic research on their
biota.”
Dr. Dai Herbert
Malacologist
KwaZulu-Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg
Usage: Macro

20. 2016
198,747 visitors | March 2016
Past 12 Months
2.2m sessions
1.2m visitors
2007

21. 1. London
2. Paris
3. New York
4. Washington
5. Mexico City
6. Berlin
7. Sydney
8. Vienna
9. Sao Paulo
10. Madrid

22. 13.5% sessions
Mobile Sessions FY 2016
9.3% sessions
Mobile Sessions FY 2013

23. “BHL is a tremendous and extremely valuable
resource. It has done an enormous amount to
enhance the capacity of developing countries
to undertake taxonomic research on their
biota.”
Dr. Dai Herbert
Malacologist
KwaZulu-Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg
Usage: Institutional

24. EXPLORING
COLLECTION
IMPACT IN BHL
PAGES VOLUMES
64,600 297
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BHL TO DATE
AVERAGE
VIEWS PER
ITEM (IN IA) 358
106,349
TOTAL VIEWS/
DOWNLOADS IN
INTERNET ARCHIVE

25. “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
A Free & Open Library

26. 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

27. 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

28. “[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
Global Biodiversity
Collaboration

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

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

31. "I think BHL is one of the most important and
useful resources online right now. Judging by
how often I use it, I’d say it has an impact on
my research commensurate with that of
Google Scholar or Web of Science.”
Andrew Durso
Ph.D. Student, Herpetology
Biology Department
Utah State University
Expanding Directions

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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: 3,535 volumes (382
titles; 384,474 pages); 106 in copyright
titles from 54 contributors.

35. 109,000+
IMAGES IN FLICKR
TOTAL IMAGES
TAGGED31,000+
218+MILLION
TOTAL VIEWS ON IMAGES
OF TOTAL FLICKR
COLLECTION TAGGED
TAGGED IMAGES IN
EOL
28% 18,000+
BHL FLICKR NAMED 1 OF WIRED’S
27 MUST-FOLLOW FEEDS IN
THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
*Stats as of December 2016
WWW.FLICKR.COM/BIODIVLIBRARY

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

37. “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.”
Gina Douglas
Honorary Archivist
Linnean Society of London
Governance

38. Executive Committee
BHL GOVERNANCE
BHL Members’ Council
CHAIR
Dr. Nancy E. Gwinn
Smithsonian Libraries
VICE-CHAIR
Constance Rinaldo
Harvard, Ernst Mayr
Library, MCZ
SECRETARY
Jane Smith
Natural History
Museum, London

39. Secretariat
BHL GOVERNANCE
Program Diretor
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Program Manager
Carolyn Sheffield
Collections
Manager
Bianca Crowley
Outreach &
Communication
Manager
Grace Costantino

40. 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

41. “I am pretty sure I exclaimed ‘this is amazing!’ out
loud as soon as I discovered BHL, and I immediately
bookmarked it in my browser. BHL helps fill this void
by providing such resources freely to the public.”
Aaron Sims
Rare Plant Botanist
California Native Plant Society (CNPS)
Financial Structure

42. FUNDING SOURCES
• Member and Affiliate Dues & Fees
• 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
• U.S. Federal Funding
• Federal allocation to Smithsonian
Libraries
• Donations
• Product Development
• Institutional Subventions
• In-Kind Contributions

43. CASH & IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS
DIRECT STAFF
$1,112,785.14
VALUE
OF
MEMBER & AFFILIATE
CONTRIBUTIONS 2015
OTHER
$246,123.06
2014
VS
2015
TOTAL IN-KIND
CONTRIBUTIONS
2014
$1,437,666.46
2015
$1,358,908.20
14TOTAL MEMBER & AFFILIATE
FTEs WORKING ON BHL IN 2015

44. 2006 – 2016
Grants Received (by year)

45. “BHL is an awesomely useful resource! It’s
very helpful to have the BHL when I’m
traveling away from ‘home base.’ No need to
carry around a rare 120 year old book if you
can just open a scanned file of it on your
computer.”
Dr. Christopher Mah
Invertebrate Zoologist
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Outreach

46. 62,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
11,500+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
11,200+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
30,800+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
5,000+
AVERAGE MONTHLY
READERS (CY16)
2,300+
FOLLOW @BIODIVLIBRARY
*Stats as of January 2017
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
3,500+

47. MAJOR MEETINGS
• 2016 DLF Forum, Milwaukee, 6-9 November 2016
• GBIF 23, Brasilia, 24-28 October 2016
• Library Leaders Forum 2016, Internet Archive, San
Francisco, 26-28 October 2015
• CETAF 40 General Assembly Madrid, Spain, 18-19
October 2016
• The 8th Shanghai International Library Forum,
Shanghai, 6-8 July 2016
• SPNHC 31st Annual Meeting, Berlin, 19-26 June
2016
• Open Repositories, Ireland, June 2016
• Society for Scholarly Publishing, Vancouver, June
2016
• BHL/ITIS/EOL/GBIF Meeting, Prague, June 2016
• BHL 2016 Annual Meeting and 7th Global BHL
Meeting, London, 11-15 April 2016
• BHL Mexico Workshop, CONABIO, Mexico City,
Mexico, 2-4 December 2015
• LITA Forum, Minneapolis, 15 November 2015 BHL
• Staff Meeting, Washington, DC, 12-13 November
2015
• Library Leaders Forum 2015, Internet Archive, San
Francisco, 21-23 October 2015
• 22nd GBIF Governing Board Meeting (GB22),
Madagascar, 5-11 October 2015
• TDWG 2015, Nairobi, 28 September - 1 October
2015

48. Engage with audiences

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

50. 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

51. “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
BHL and You …

52. The Biodiversity Heritage Library
relies on its network of partners to
grow its vast online collections, to
effectively serve its worldwide
user base, and to maintain its
impact as a leader in both the
library and biodiversity
communities.
BHL Partners: Members and Affiliates

53. BHL welcomes new Partners
through a tiered participation
structure to accommodate
libraries of various sizes and
capacity.
 Member
 Affiliate
BHL Partners: Members and Affiliates

54. • participate in influencing the direction of the
consortium;
• leverage resources including access to a
pool of scanning funds;
• access to additional fee-based services
provided exclusively to BHL Partners;
• participate in governance and direction of
BHL;
• participate in collaborative grant and funding
opportunities that directly benefit partner
institutions.
Tangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

55. 2006 – 2016
Grants Received (by Lead Institution)

56. • expand the reach and impact of the
their library’s digital content;
• have increased visibility of the
institution and library both within the
library professional sphere as well as
in professional organizations;
• engage a global audience through
the BHL’s extensive social media
reach;
Intangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

57. • participate in a community of active,
engaged leading information
professionals;
• participate in a global digital library
program that grew out of a direct
need from the taxonomic community;
• are recognized as digital library
leaders as part of the award winning
BHL;
Intangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

58. • have focused aggregation of library content
that complements that content in large
general digital library projects such as
Europeana, DPLA, Gallica, HathiTrust, etc.;
• showcase content with their global peers
within a biodiversity context;
• wider collaboration with global biodiversity
and information organizations including
GBIF, SciColl, CETAF, ICSTI, etc.
Intangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

59. ... meeting the aspirational goals
of the Convention on Biodiversity
and the Darwin Declaration
A Larger Context
BHL supports your institution in ...

60. “Such exchange of information shall include
exchange of results of technical, scientific
and socio-economic research, as well as
information on training and surveying
programmes, specialized knowledge,
indigenous and traditional knowledge as
such and in combination with the
technologies referred to in Article 16,
paragraph 1. It shall also, where feasible,
include repatriation of information.”
A Larger Context
Convention on Biodiversity (CBD Article 17, 1992)

61. “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 ”
A Larger Context
Convention on Biological Diversity (1992)

62. “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 ”
A Larger Context
Darwin Declaration (1998)

63. BHL strives to be part of that larger "Biodiversity
Commons" and provide a space for the literature
of biodiversity to be available such that ...

64. By engaging with the larger
biodiversity community and major
stakeholder institutions, BHL is
creating a sustainable
biodiversity commons for the
literature of taxonomy.

65. 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".
BHL has created that community
among our natural history and
botanical libraries
Elinor Ostrom, "Sustainable development and the
tragedy of commons" (2009)

66. Specimens, data, publications...

67. Thank You!
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Twitter@BHLProgDirector
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