The Biodiversity Heritage Library: Origin | Growth | Partnerships. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Biodiversity Heritage Library Organization and Planning Meeting. Kirstenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa. 14 June 2012. . Washington, DC. 24 May 2012.

1. The Biodiversity Heritage Library
Origin | Growth | Partnerships
BHL Africa Organisational and Planning Meeting
14 June 02012 | Kirstenbosch | Cape Town, South Africa
Martin R. Kalfatovic | Smithsonian Libraries

2. A Well-Appointed Library
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

3. A large library
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

5. Missouri Botanical Garden & BHL Pre-history
Illustrated Gardens, 1997

6. Smithsonian Libraries & BHL Pre-history
Biologia Centrali-American, 2004

7. 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
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.
February 2008. Launch of EOL species
pages and associated BHL literature

8. Libraries & Laboratories
2005, London

9. Biodiversity Heritage Library

American Museum of 
Smithsonian Libraries
Natural History 
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Field Museum 
Missouri Botanical Garden

California Academy of
Academy of Natural

Sciences
Sciences (Philadelphia)

Cornell University Library 
Marine Biological Laboratory/

Museum of Comparative WHOI
Zoology (Harvard) 
Harvard Botany Libraries

New York Botanical 
US Geological Survey
Garden
Library

Natural History Museum
(London)

11. 15. Library of Congress
Agreement to join, but not yet signed
16. ?????
17. ?????
New & 18. ?????
Improved 19. ?????
20. ?????
n+1.?????

13. How is BHL Organized?
Executive Committee
- Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary
- Project Director & Program Manager
- Technical Director
Steering Committee
- Contribute funds to the Secretariat
- 9 institutional members
Institutional Council
- Interested institutions who sign participation agreement
Pan-BHL Staff
- Global Coordinator, Collections Coordinator, Data
Analyst

14. BHL Executive Committee, 2011-
Nancy Gwinn | Connie Rinaldo | Susan Fraser

16. Funding
- Private Grants
- US Federal Appropriations
- Membership dues
- Institutional support

17. Accomplishments

18. Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2006

19. Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2012

20. 38,887,920 pages
105,762 items
55,701 titles

21. > 390,000 views in 10
months
> 30,000+ images

23. Meetings

24. Life and Literature
Conference and JRS
Africa meetings
Chicago, Illinois
November 2011

25. BHL & EOL Booth
American Library Association Meeting
Dallas, TX, January 2012

26. Some
Statistics

27. Usage Stats
Q1, FY12 (October-December 2011)


288.287 visits

1.376 million page views

46.33% Bounce rate

46.72% new users

28. ~1.6 m users | 16 m page views
233 countries

29. Technical
Developments

30. Scanning a Books

32. The Internet Archive
• 501(c)(3) organization
• Dedicated to “Universal Access to
Human Knowledge”
• Founder of the Open Content Alliance
• Provides:
– Mass scanning
– Archival storage of files
– Image processing
– Technology development

33. BHL Scanning
Centers

New Jersey
− 10 Scribe facility at
New York Public
Library

Boston
− 10 Scribe facility at
Boston Public Library

Other
− 1 Scribe, 2 shifts,
London
− 2 Scribes at UIUC

34. BHL Scanning
Centers

Washington, DC
− 1 Scribe machine at
Smithsonian Libraries
− 10 Scribe facility at
Library of Congress
with Fedlink
(operational Spring
2008)

35. In January, 2012, a new
application was added to
the BHL administration
dashboard that allows
direct upload of images
from BHL to Flickr, with
embedded metadata and
page links included.

36. Macaw (Metadata
Collection and
Workflow). Scanning
workflow and ingest
mangement tool.
Based on “Paginator”
(MOBOT), Macaw
allows for creating
robust page level
metadata and pushing
content to other
repositories (e.g.
Internet Archive and
local storage) .

37. Workflow Tools
- Scan/Bidlist
- Monographic de-dupper
- Wonderfetch

38. Social Media
Social Media

39. Facebook
Total Post Views: 245,095
Conversation Reach (Total Post Interactions/# of people who
like our page): .95 or 95%
Audience Growth (Total new people who like our page): 338
Audience Engagement (Total post interactions): 1,620
Total Monthly active Users by End of Q1, FY12: 1,273
Total Page Likes: 1,871

40. Twitter
Clicks on Links in Tweets: 1,164
Audience Engagement (@mentions
+ RTs): 380
Total Followers: 1,306
Audience Growth (new followers):
181
Conversation Reach (audience
engagement/followers): .33 or 33%
Mentions by Influencers: 221

41. Flickr
Total Views: 386,744
Total Followers: 365
New Images Added: 8,904
Audience Engagement (total
comments, favorites, notes & tags,
and added to galleries): 1,382

42. Blog
Total Visits: 4,868
Unique Visitors: 3,540

43. May I compliment you on this splendid service? The
Library's invaluable for my work on seasonal
variability of climate and vector-borne disease in
“
T
h British India, 1875-1940.
a
n
k
I really appreciatey your work. The Biodiversity Heritage
Library is an excellent resource that regularly helps my
o
u
assistant and I obtain original descriptions for plants .... I
feel so privileged m be working in a day in age when such
to
u
resources are so readily available and easy to obtain.
c
h
f
o
r
y
What an absolutely owonderful site.
It is a treasure trove of information.
u
r
Thank you! h
e

44. Looking Forward
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]

46. Thank You
Martin R. Kalfatovic | Smithsonian Libraries