Biodiversity Heritage Library: Disseminating Content Beyond the Silo

Bianca Crowley Collections Coordinator

Free biodiversity literature & data for

everyone!

http://biodiversitylibrary.org

Now online61,401 titles

116,078 volumes

41.2 million pages

• New user interface launched in March• Search by title, author, article, subjects and scientific

names• Various download options, even high resolution• Taxonomic name finding algorithm• Machine-to-machine services

BHL Overview

• Open access• Open data• Deconstruct the silo and deliver content where users

are already working– Via other biodiversity websites and taxonomic resources– Via social media platforms like our blog, flickr, Facebook,

Twitter, Pinterest, &etc.

• Involve users in collection and technical development activities

Core Principles

Core BHL Member Institutions

Now online6900+ titles

18,000 volumes

7 million+ pages

Global Partners

Scanning Locally, Coordinating Globally

User Feedback is Critical

General feedback form Scan request form

http://biodiversitylibrary.org/contact

Beyond the Silo: Open Data

Amblyopsis

Formica sanguinea

Trifolium pratense

On the Origin of Species

By Charles Darwin (1859)

Bibliographic data for 61,000+ titlesScientific name data for 150 million+ taxa

Dear , , ,

Free data. Come and get it!

-BHL

Beyond the Silo: Open Data

Open Data Policy

APIsApplication

Programming Interfaces

Stable URLs

OAI-PMHOpen Archive

Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

Data Exports

Beyond the Silo: Open Data

Beyond the Silo: Social Media

@BioDivLibrary

www.facebook.com/BioDivLibrary

blog.biodiversitylibrary.org

http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets

pinterest.com/biodivlibrary

Impact• “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. Further use of BHL occurred when building work at the Linnean Society of London limited access to some of the book I had been able to use from that collection."

• “I would like thank you all very much for invaluable work and support you do. I just got a pdf-file from more than century old (1893) journal paper (regional naturalist society paper, published in Finland), to get copy I should take 500 mile drive to our university library. Now I am got it fastly in high-quality pdf-copy. Cordial thanks and all success in continuing your highly valuable mission.” [conservation biologist from Estonia]

• “You are a wonderful resource. I maintain a Website that describes the plant genus Opuntia (prickly pear cacti). There is no way I could maintain such a site without access to literature from 100-200 years ago. Most of the cactus species were discovered long ago; I find it invaluable to put up PDF files to document each species in the literature as I document them photographically. I am a botanist, but I work in the pharmaceutical field (not so many botanical jobs out there). Your library makes it possible for me to continue working with plants in a meaningful and scientific manner.”

Thank youhttp://biodiversitylibrary.org

Bianca Crowley, crowleyb@si.edu