“It is something wonderful”

the Biodiversity Heritage Library:

a Science Library for Global Learning

Rebecca Morin

User Services Librarian

California Academy of Sciences

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http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org

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Members

American Museum of Natural History (New York)

Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia)

California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco)

Field Museum (Chicago)

Natural History Museum (London)

Smithsonian Institution Libraries (Washington)

Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis)

New York Botanical Garden (New York)

Royal Botanic Garden, Kew

Botany Libraries, Harvard University

Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University

Marine Biological Laboratory / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Global Reach / Global Impact

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Why?

Who Uses It?

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Usage 2010

• 837,000 Visits

• 422,000 Unique Visitors

• 4.2 Million Page Views

• 221 Countries/Territories

More than 80% of visitors seek information in

• Systematics

• Taxonomy

• Nomenclature

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Multiple Means of Access

• BHL: 18.65%

• Referring Sites: 38.13%

• EOL

• Wikipedia

• Tropicos

• Smithsonian

• BioOne

• Animal Base

• Search Engines: 43.12%

Source: Google Analytics (Oct. 2010 – Jan. 2011)

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Encyclopedia of Life

Encyclopedia of Life/BHL Interface

EOL BHL

PAGE LEVEL ACCESS @ THE TAXONOMIC NAME

BHL & OCLC

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BHL & OCLC

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BHL & OCLC

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What Does BHL Do For Me?

• Bibliographies

• Name Searching

• Taxonomic Intelligence

• Complete Items

• PDF Creation

• APIs

• Stable URLs

Connecting Content

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A Ready Partnership

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Connecting Content

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Linking Field Notes & Specimens

“Connecting Content” will help us gather information from here…

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&

Linking Field Notes & Specimens & Literature

…And connect it to literature in BHL

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What Have We Learned?

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Researchers want article-level access

What Have We Learned?

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Users want contact

User Feedback

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What Have We Learned?

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Give users options

Pay Attention to Users

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Nov. 2010 – Jan. 2011

• 370 user issues recorded

• 46% scan requests

• 62% resolved

63% of requests from 10 users

Feedback

Oct. 2010 – Jan. 2011

• 292,304 visits

• 1,586,562 pageviews

• 137,900 unique visitors

• 207 different countries/territories

BHL Use

“…For a student like me who is from one

of the poorest countries on earth where

there are not enough libraries and even

the existing libraries do not have enough

literature, it is something wonderful.

Thanks to those people who created it.”

Sajan Subedi

BHL User

Thank You!

Special Thanks To

The Institute of Museum and Library Services

Bianca Crowley, Martin Kalfatovic, Suzanne

Pilsk & everyone else at BHL

The “Connecting Content” Partners

Danielle Castronovo

rmorin@calcademy.org Twitter: @tiny_librarian