Sharing Data for Biodiversity: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Leaders' Forum: The Internet Archive. 21 October 2010. San Francisco, CA.

1. Sharing Data for Biodiversity
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Martin R. Kalfatovic :: Internet Archive Leaders' Forum :: 21 October 2010

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

10. BHL Global data sharing

11. BHL Global
BHL Europe
BHL China

12. BHL Global
Brasil
Australia
Egypt

13. Achievements
> Digitization of biodiversity
literature
> Creation of a global partnership
> Engagement of the research
community

14. 31+ million pages

15. Six Continents

16. ~1.5 m users
231 countries

18. Access
Putting biodiversity
literature in the hands of
researchers
Set the data free
Suck it; mash it;
broadcast it
Increase
Reuse, recyle, expand
An inordinate fondness for data

19. The Machine is Using Us
• Direct Traffic: 16.55%
• Referring Sites: 22.20%
– EOL
– Wikipedia:
– Tropicos
– Smithsonian
– BioOne
– Animal Base
• Search Engines: 61.15%

20. Open Software & Development
BHL Bits:
Portal code, utilities, services
http://code.google.com/p/bhl-bits/
Taxonomic Literature Group
Google Group for discussion of “taxonomic literature &
the services required to make literature interoperable
within biodiversity research and biodiversity informatics.”
http://groups.google.com/group/taxonlit

21. Open Data
Downloads
Simple tab-delimited exports of core data
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/data/BHLExportSchema.pdf
Data model
DB schema as ERD
http://bhl-bits.googlecode.com/files/20090930_BHLDataModel.pdf

22. Services
Names Service
Return all occurrences of a name throughout BHL digitized corpus
Documentation: http://bit.ly/2e6sg9
Access to 51million name strings using TaxonFinder
1.4million unique names
Working out a strategy for obscure species
Algorithm improvements to detect nomenclatural & taxonomic acts
OpenURL
Facilitate links to citations: protologues, articles, references
Documentation: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/openurlhelp.aspx
Useful to Nomenclators, Reference Systems
IPNI
Tropicos

23. Other Consumers
EarthCape Labs
Sort/Search capabilities with harvested names
YouTube demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw7qw87JTOs
BioGUID
BHL Name Timeline
http://bioguid.info/bhl/
BHL Name Comparison
http://bioguid.info/bhl/compare.php

27. BioStor Images

28. Global data sharing requires
a social infrastructure

31. Dear Sir / Madam Can i just congratulate you
on an absolutely brilliant online resource. I am
compiling a report on an invasive
hydromedusae and could not believe the ease
and efficiency of this web page which
genuinely saved me weeks of my life
Dear Sir / Madam Can i just congratulate you
on an absolutely brilliant online resource. I am
compiling a report on an invasive
hydromedusae and could not believe the ease
and efficiency of this web page which
genuinely saved me weeks of my life
What Users Say
Dear Biodiversity Heritage Library: I am
in awe of your work. Thank you so
much. As an illustrator who scans a lot
of my work, I know how very onerous the
task is. Many thanks!
Dear Biodiversity Heritage Library: I am
in awe of your work. Thank you so
much. As an illustrator who scans a lot
of my work, I know how very onerous the
task is. Many thanks!
Just a quick line to thank you
and your organisation for the
foresight and generosity in
allowing these works to be
dowloaded.
Just a quick line to thank you
and your organisation for the
foresight and generosity in
allowing these works to be
dowloaded.

32. 
Specimen collections

Databases

Publications

Observations

‘Gray’ literature

Index cards

Field notebooks
Taxonomic Impediment

33. 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

34. The Biodiversity Heritage Library
Extensive. Open. Global.

35. Thank You
Thanks to:
Chris Freeland, Bianca Crowley,
Suzanne Pilsk, Team BHL Global