Increasing Access, Promoting Progress: Empowering Global Research through the BHL. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Group of 12 Meeting. Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. Paris, 2 December 2016.

1. Martin R. Kalfatovic
Program Director
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Smithsonian Libraries
Increasing Access,
Promoting Progress:
Empowering Global Research
through the BHL
Group of 12 Meeting
December 2016 | Paris

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
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
Libraries ScienceTechnology

7. 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

8. BHL is a Global Consortium
17MEMBERS
AS OF DECEMBER 2016
16AFFILIATES
60+ WORLDWIDE PARTNERS

9. “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

10. 50+MILLION
PAGES
TITLES VOLUMES
112,000+ 190,000+
172+MILLIONINSTANCES OF TAXONOMIC NAMES
530+IN-COPYRIGHT TITLES LICENSED FOR BHL
AGREEMENTS
WITH 230+
LICENSORS
*Stats as of November 2016

11. 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.

12. 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

14. 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

15. 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.

16. 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

17. 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.

18. Digitization Workflow
Metadata Collection and Workflow System

19. Digitization Workflow

20. Digitization Workflow

21. Digitization Workflow

22. Digitization Workflow
Smithsonian
Data Center
Bib Alex
Data Center

23. Collection Management Cycle

24. Curating Collections in BHL

25. Curating Collections in BHL

26. Curating Collections in BHL
Content by Contributor

27. “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

28. 2016
198,747 visitors | March 2016
Past 12 Months
2.2m sessions
1.2m visitors
2007

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

30. 13.5% sessions
Mobile Sessions FY 2016
9.3% sessions
Mobile Sessions FY 2013

31. “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

32. 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

33. Exploring Collection Impact in BHL
ITEM VIEWS
1,313
UNIQUE VIEWS
963
AVG. TIME
ON PAGE
1:23
The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. v.
1 (1789). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124540.
Digitized by Museums Victoria.

34. Exploring Collection Impact in BHL
The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. v.
1 (1789). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124540.
Digitized by Museums Victoria.
Tracking Online
Impact: Altmetric

35. Exploring Collection Impact in BHL
The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. v.
1 (1789). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124540.
Digitized by Museums Victoria.
Tracking Online
Impact: Altmetric

36. Exploring Collection Impact in BHL
The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. v.
1 (1789). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124540.
Digitized by Museums Victoria.
Sharing & linking
to Flickr where
collections can be
enhanced through
citizen science!

37. Exploring Collection Impact in BHL
The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. v.
1 (1789). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124540.
Digitized by Museums Victoria.
The images in Flickr link
back to the image in
BHL and credit the
contributing institution.

38. Exploring Collection Impact in BHL
The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. v.
1 (1789). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124540.
Digitized by Museums Victoria.
In Flickr, volunteers
enhance our collections
through tags &
comments. For instance,
they tag our illustrations
with common and
scientific (including
accepted & synonym)
names.
They also add
information about
artists, including artist
names & VIAF numbers.

39. Exploring Collection Impact in BHL
The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. v.
1 (1789). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124540.
Digitized by Museums Victoria.
The Encyclopedia
of Life (EOL)
automatically
ingests any of our
tagged images in
Flickr & associates
them with
corresponding
species pages.
The EOL files credit
BHL & link back to
the page in BHL, so
it’s always easy for
users to see where
the image came
from and view the
page in BHL.

40. “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

41. 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

42. 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

43. • All BHL content must be
explicitly licensed and this
license is referenced in the
metadata
• Public domain material is noted
as such
• Every in-copyright book or
volume needs a Creative
Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike
4.0 International license
Licensing Required

44. Licensing Required

45. Medadata Licensing
The BHL makes its metadata available for public use
under the CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain
Dedication license . This Creative Commons license
allows you to reuse, modify, repurpose, and distribute the
metadata for all purposes including commercial and non-
commercial, with no need to ask for permission.

47. “[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

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

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

50. "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

51. 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

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

53. “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
BHL Technology

54. 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

55. DOI
ASSIGNMENT
104,000+
TO DATEThe birds of Australia (1865) by John Gould
http://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.8367
Enables persistent citation of
BHL content in publications. Most
cited BHL item is Systema
Naturae (1758)

56. TAXONOMIC
NAME
SEARCHING
The Global Names
Architecture (GNA) is a
system of web-services
which helps people to
register, find, index,
check and organize
biological scientific
names and interconnect
on-line information about
species.
Names Discovery Engines
•NetiNeti
•TaxonFinder

57. Species Bibliographies
Click on Link to
View Page
View Taxonomy Source
Information

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

59. 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

60. Species Description from the USExEx

61. “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

62. *As of December 2016
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
• Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
• The LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New
York Botanical Garden
• Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven
Library
• 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

63. *As of December 2016
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
• Washington University Libraries

64. 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

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

66. 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

67. “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

68. 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

69. 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

70. 2006 – 2016
Grants Received (by year)

71. EXPENSES $256,332 Total
Programmer $139,000
Hardware and Software $7,500
Scanning Costs $43,992
Travel and Training $14,000
Meetings $19,000
Outreach $5,000
Contingency & Carryover $25,740
Indirect Costs $ 2,100
CY 2016 Spending (Dues and Fees)

72. “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

73. 55,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
10,800+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
10,900+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
26,000+
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
4,900+
AVERAGE MONTHLY
READERS (CY16)
2,300+
FOLLOW @BIODIVLIBRARY
*Stats as of November 2016
TOTAL FOLLOWERS
2,400+
* BHL Instagram launched August 2016

74. 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

75. Engage with audiences

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

77. 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

78. “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
BHL & the G12

81. 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

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

83. … 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
Tangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

84. … participate in governance and
direction of BHL
… participate in collaborative grant and
funding opportunities
Tangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

85. 2006 – 2016
Grants Received (by Lead Institution)

86. … 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
Intangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

87. ... 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
Intangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

88. ... 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
Intangible Institutional benefits
BHL partners ...

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

90. “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)

91. “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)

92. “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 …

93. BHL strives to be part of that larger "Biodiversity
Commons" and provide a space for the literature
of biodiversity to be available such that ...
 it is a zone of fair use
 sustainable use without jeopardizing original
ownership rights
 respects organizational/individual "moral rights"
(rights of authors)
 protects against unauthorized commercial use
Tom Moritz, "A Vision for the Biodiversity Commons" (2004)

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

95. 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)

96. Specimens, data, publications...

97. Merci!
Discussion
Discussion