Martin R. KalfatovicSmithsonian Institution Libraries

OCLC Digital Forum East 20095 November 2009Arlington, VA

An Inordinate Fondness for DataThe Biodiversity Heritage Library

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

TheEncyclopedia of Life

H

InformaticsMarine Biological LaboratoryMissouri Botanical Garden

Species Pages & SecretariatSmithsonian

Education and OutreachSmithsonian & Harvard

Synthesis CenterField Museum

How much is there:

Core literature pre-1923: 100 million pages (?)

All pre-1923: 120-150 million pages

All literature: 280-320 million pages

• Northeast Regional Scanning Facility (Boston)

• Jersey City Facility• University of Illinois• Natural History

Museum, London• Missouri Botanical

Garden (Non-Scribe operation)

• Fedscan (Library of Congress)

• Smithsonian Libraries

BHL Members: BHL-Europe• Museum für Naturkunde -

Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

• Natural History Museum, UK• Narodni muzeum NMP CZ• Angewandte Informationstechnik

Forschungsgesellschaft mbH• Freie Universität Berlin

FUBBGBM• Georg-August-Universität

Göttingen Stiftung Öffentlichen Rechts

• Naturhistorisches Museum Wien• Hungarian Natural History

Museum• Museum and Institute of

Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences

• University of Copenhagen

• Stichting Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum, Naturalis

• National Botanic Garden of Belgium

• Royal Museum for Central Africa,• Royal Belgian Institute of Natural

Sciences• Bibliothèque nationale de France• Museum national d’histoire

naturelle• Consejo Superior de

Investigaciones Cientificas• Università degli Studi di Firenze• Royal Botanic Garden,

Edinburgh• Species 2000• John Wiley & Sons limited• Helsingin yliopisto UH-Viikki

More than:40,000 volumes16 million pagesOnly 290 million to go!

Avg. monthly growth rate1,500 volumes 600,000 pagesSee you in 2048!

Now Online

Ingest existing content12,000,000 pages+ from otherInternet Archive scanning partners

Acquiring other content ...Researches scanning their own work or literature relevant to their work

Journals that have scanned their content, but do not have a robust platform to host it

Biodiversity Heritage Library Permission ProcessWorking with non-profit publishers for sharing with the BHL

To digitize and mount works under copyright BHL must obtain permission from the copyright holders.

Many biodiversity journals and monographs are published by non-profit institutions or learned societies whose mission is to promote research and learning.

Some of these institutions have not sold their rights to commercial publishers and are open to sharing with the BHL.

So what? Does [fill in blank] do that?

… and more and faster?

So what? Does [fill in blank] do that?

… and more and faster?

BHL is all about OPEN & SHARING

Remind me again why?

AccessPutting biodiversity literature in the hands of researchersSet the data freeSuck it; mash it; broadcast itIncreaseReuse, recyle, expand

An inordinate fondness for data

Stats: Usage

• Jan – Sep 2009– 266,000 visitors– 436,000 visits– 2.1million

pageviews

• Daily average– 970 visitors– 1,600 visits / day– 7,700 pageviews /

dayJan – Sep 2009

Launch to 30 Sep 2009

Global, coordinated development

New functionality from BHL-EuropeImproved deduplication toolsSemantic interfaceOAIS-compliant preservation infrastructure

Building a community of developersFunded & volunteerRubyBHL: http://github.com/mjy/rubyBHL

PyBHL: http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Programming/Libraries/pybhl-51612.shtml

New partners, new content

Open Software & DevelopmentBHL Bits:

Portal code, utilities, serviceshttp://code.google.com/p/bhl-bits/

Taxonomic Literature GroupGoogle 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

Open Data

DownloadsSimple tab-delimited exports of core data http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/data/BHLExportSchema.pdf

Data modelDB schema as ERD http://bhl-bits.googlecode.com/files/20090930_BHLDataModel.pdf

Open Data

Open Source Pageturning UI

http://github.com/openlibrary/bookreader

Metadata: Feedback loop

Assigned to library staff for review & resolution

ServicesNames Service

Return all occurrences of a name throughout BHL digitized corpus

Documentation: http://bit.ly/2e6sg9Access to 51million name strings using TaxonFinder

1.4million unique namesWorking out a strategy for obscure speciesAlgorithm improvements to detect nomenclatural & taxonomic

acts

OpenURLFacilitate links to citations: protologues, articles, references

Documentation: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/openurlhelp.aspxUseful to Nomenclators, Reference Systems

IPNITropicos

Services: OpenURL Request

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/openurl?pid=title:3934&volume=3&issue=&spage=262&date=1856

http://www.tropicos.org/Name/1200408

Services: OpenURL Disambiguation

Looking for:

BHL returns:

Services: OpenURL Results

Encyclopedia of Life

522,000 species pages linked to BHL#1 referring site

Other Consumers

EarthCape LabsSort/Search capabilities with harvested namesYouTube demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw7qw87JTOs

BioGUIDBHL Name Timeline

http://bioguid.info/bhl/

BHL Name Comparisonhttp://bioguid.info/bhl/compare.php

Global BHLBased on open access

Open content

Collaboration

Shared development

Uh, so what's it meanto me?1.9 million known species … most described once in a hard to find article … wouldn't it be nice to know more about your neighbors ...

And thanks to ...

Thanks for sticking around!