An Overview of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. University of Pretoria Visitor Presentation. Smithsonian Libraries. 20 September 2013.

2. Specimen collections
Databases
Publications
Observations
‘Gray’ literature
Index cards
Field notebooks
Taxonomic Impediment

3. Technology Library Science
Biodiversity Heritage Library

5. BHL “classic” or US/UK: 15 institutions …Formed in
2006, 13 members and 2 affiliates
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

6. BHL “classic” or US/UK: Key Organizational Points
• BHL is not a legal entity; fiduciary
and legal agreements are generally
delegated to individual members
• Membership is governed my a
Memorandum of Understanding
signed by all members
• Two levels of membership (as of
2013):
• Member (voting and
administrative input);
annual dues of $10,000 USD
• Affiliate (provide content or
other services to BHL; no
voting or input into overall
BHL direction)
• BHL Secretariat (Administrative
component), housed at the
Smithsonian Libraries
• BHL Technical Team (housed at
Missouri Botanical Garden)
• BHL Executive Committee (elected
by Members): Chair, Vice-Chair and
Secretary

7. BHL Institutional Council | Woods Hole | May 2013

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

9. What is Biodiversity Content?

10. Collection Management Cycle
Deduplication
Digitization
Users
Curation
Selection

11. Selection
High-yield taxonomic materials
Unique & rare materials
Permissions titles
User requested titles & gap-fills
Discipline specific subject matter
Non-BHL member materials ingested from the
Internet Archive
ACTIVE
/HIGH
PRIORITY
PASSIVE /LOW
PRIORITY

12. Increase agreements
with publishers of in
copyright materials
US Titles: 206
UK Titles: 67
TOTAL TITLES: 273
US Licensors: 85
UK Licensors: 40
TOTAL LICENSORS: 125

13. Digitization Workflow
Insert
Smithsonian
Macaw software
here

15. Internet Archive Scanning
Northeast Regional
Scanning Facility
(Boston)
New Jersey Facility
Natural History Museum,
London
Fedscan (Library of
Congress)
Internet Archive (San
Francisco)
Smithsonian Libraries
Missouri Botanical Garden
(Non-Scribe operation)

16. Scanning Operations: Macaw

17. 41,510,620 pages
118,151 items
62,754 titles
19 September 2013
Content Growth
2007-2013

18. … and now including segments
92,356 “segments”

19. New Content Types
Field Books and other archival materials Stand along or linked illustrations

20. Secretariat
Technical
Member operations
BHL Expenditures

21. 233 countriesUsers in 233 Countries

22. User Statistics: 2007 - 2013
Visitors: 3,628,088
Page Views: 17,604,395
New vs. Returning: 50.06% vs. 49.04%
2007
2013
146,798 visitors | November 2012

23. 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>

24. I am thrilled with what I have been able to find
re: archaic mammary embryology some of
which I had been hoping to find at the National
Library of Medicine, and to get it through your
program was a huge advantage. Last night I
believe I requested and received 11 PDFs, all
of which are essential to a review paper* I am
completing.
Olav T. Oftedal PhD
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
* “Evo-Devo of the Mammary Gland” by Oftedal, et al.
Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia (May 2013)

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

26. 3.8 million total views | 63,000 images (13 Feb 13)

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

30. Trish Rose-Sandler, Missouri Botanical GardenDLF Forum 2012 Denver CO Art of Life project

31. Scanning Locally, Collaborating Globally
 6 global nodes: By country, region, language
 Each node is independent and self-organized, but work under a
set of common principles
 Share content as much as possible
 Node leaders form a Global Coordinating Committee
 Goal is to share a common portal where possible
 Goal is to develop multi-lingual portal

33. Trish Rose-Sandler, Missouri Botanical GardenDLF Forum 2012 Denver CO Art of Life project
BHL Africa Launch | Pretoria | April 2013

34. Global BHL Steering Committee
August 2011 Vice Chair SecretaryChair

39. 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

40. Thank you!
Enkosi!
Danki!
Ngiyabonga!
Ke a leboha!
Ndzi khense ngofu
Ndi a livhuwa