The Biodiversity Heritage Library: Collaborating Globally, Scanning Locally. Librarians as Digital Leaders: Collaborating on the Development and Use of Digitized Collections. American Library Association Annual Conference. Las Vegas, NV. 28 June 2014.

2. Who lives/lived here?

3. Linnaeus classified ~ 15,000 plants and animals
in the course of his publication

4. Today, the EOL lists 1,303,873 species pages

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

6. In earlier times, all the information about
species could be found in one place

7. What if we could tackle just a bit of this
problem … books?

8. The Wherefore of BHL
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

9. So what if we could assemble this
Library … digitally?

10. 2006 BHL is created
10 US and UK partners

11. Technology Library Science
Biodiversity Heritage Library

12. Problems of Mass Digitization of Library Materials

13. Mass digitization of Smithsonian Libraries collections aligns
with the overall Smithsonian digitization strategy and remains a
center of excellence for rapid digitization at the SI
Problems of Library Metadata

14. Reclassification of “Sperm Whale” over time
Problems of Taxonomic Science

15. 20 Members and Affiliates
16 Members
• American Museum of Natural History
• California Academy of Sciences Library
• Cornell University 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
• National Library Board (Singapore)
• Natural History Museum, London
• The New York Botanical Garden
• Royal Botanic Garden, Kew
• Smithsonian Libraries
• United States Geological Survey Libraries
• Washington University of St. Louis
• University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
4 Affiliates
•Academy of Natural Sciences
•The Field Museum
• Natural History Museum, LA County
• Chicago Botanic Garden

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

19. Global BHL
BHL Central | BHL Africa | BHL Australia | BHL Brasil | BHL
China | BHL Egypt | BHL Europe | BHL Singapore

20. Global BHL Steering Committee
August 2011 Vice Chair SecretaryChair
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Global Governance

22. Major External
Sources of Funding

23. • Secretariat and admin costs
• Technical development
• Central funds for scanning etc.
• Total:
– ~US$583,000 / year
• Smithsonian funding
• Grants to member institutions
• Annual dues (US$10,000)
from Members
• Donations (~US$5,000
year/average)
INCOME
EXPENSES
Funding Sources
Central Expenses

24. 2013 BHL Member In-kind Staff FTE & Costs (incomplete)
16.95 FTE from the 15 member institutions
$1,464,378 staff and other costs
(does not include Secretariat or Technical staff)

25. Fundraising Plans
Continue to build our pipeline of
annual donors
Continue to use social media for
“soft asks” repurposing text/themes
of appeals
Work with the Smithsonian’s Office
of Foundation Relations to put
together major gift ($100K-500K)
proposals to several foundations
Continue other grant opportunities
for partners

27. 44,044,927 pages
139,964 items
77,510 titles
25 June 2014
Content Growth
2007-2014

28. 2007
2014
146,798 visitors | November 2012
User Statistics: 2013 – 2014 (March)
Unique Visitors: 664,645 / 55,387 per month
Page Views: 3,741,640
New vs. Returning: 54.94% vs. 45.06%

29. 233 countriesUsers in 245 Countries

30. 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>

31. 87,594 mobile visits (32% iPad)
March 2013 – March 2014
35,231 mobile visits (45% iPad)
March 2012 – March 2013

32. 36,928 visits from
social media to BHL in
2013
13,400 visits from BHL’s own
blog, Facebook, and Twitter
accounts

33. Funder: Institute of Museum and Library Services
($174,724 for US partners)
Partners: Center for Biodiversity Informatics, Missouri
Botanical Garden, (US); National Centre for Text Mining,
University of Manchester, (UK); Big Data Analytics Institute
and Social Media Lab, Dalhousie University, (CAN).
Also participating: Smithsonian Institutions and
Encyclopedia of Life.

34. 24+ million total views | 89K + images (March 2014)

36. Field Notes and Archival Materials

37. Increase agreements
with publishers of in
copyright materials
US Titles: 249
UK Titles: 69
TOTAL TITLES: 318
US Licensors: 92
UK Licensors: 41
TOTAL LICENSORS: 133
October 2013

38. Awards
2013 ComputerWorld Award
2013 Council of Botanical and Horticulture
Libraries
2011 Thackray Medal by the Society for the
History of Natural History
2010 ALCTS award for outstanding
collaboration

40. Bouchout Declaration Signatory
http://bouchoutdeclaration.org/
Our natural world is a source of food, water, resources,
protection and enjoyment that our society needs. The richness
and complexity of nature, and the speed of new discoveries
made possible by genomic and digital technologies, challenge
us to find new ways to benefit from and be better custodians of
the natural world. Digital information management systems can
bring together the wealth of information now dispersed in a
myriad of different documents, institutions, and locations. With
such systems, we can harness the benefits of rapid discovery
and open up our legacy of over 260 years of biological
observations.

41. “
T
h
a
n
k
y
o
u
m
u
c
h
f
o
r
y
o
u
r
h
e
I would like to thank your team
for bringing this world of
literature to my desk. Currently I
am using much of your 18-20th
century works to complete a
rather difficult task for an
Australian Government project.
With this access the work could
never be accomplished. Many,
many thanks

42. “
T
h
a
n
k
y
o
u
m
u
c
h
f
o
r
y
o
u
r
h
e
I really appreciate your work.
The Biodiversity Heritage
Library is an excellent resource
that regularly helps my
assistant and I obtain original
descriptions for plants .... I feel
so privileged to be working in a
day in age when such
resources are so readily
available and easy to obtain.

43. “
T
h
a
n
k
y
o
u
m
u
c
h
f
o
r
y
o
u
r
h
e
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 British India,
1875-1940.

44. 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

45. The cultivation of
natural science cannot
be efficiently carried
on without reference
to an extensive library
Charles Darwin, et al
(1847)
The Wherefore of BHL

46. 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

47. There is grandeur in
this view of life, with
its several powers,
having been
originally breathed
into a few forms or
into one; and that,
whilst this planet has
gone cycling on
according to the fixed
law of gravity ..,

48. … from so simple
a beginning
endless forms
most beautiful
and most
wonderful have
been, and are
being, evolved.

49. Community / Partnership / Science / Content

50. Thank you!