Biodiversity Heritage Library by Connie Rinaldo

Overview History EOL/BHL: WHY? Members/Collaborators Process Governance Sustainability: Legal and Financial Future Reptilia and Batrachia. ( ) by Albert C.L.G. Günther

James Dwight Dana Zoophytes. Atlas, 1849 Member Partners American Museum of Natural History Field Museum of Natural History Natural History Museum, London Smithsonian Institution Missouri Botanical Garden New York Botanical Garden 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

Why? The cited half-life of publications in taxonomy is longer than in any other scientific discipline Current taxonomic literature often relies on texts and specimens > 100 years old. Literature repatriation Resource access

Internet Archive International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature Open Content Alliance European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Atlas of Living Australia BioOne Many other negotiations underway Collaborators

Internet Archive scanning centers in London, New York, DC, Boston, Illinois etc. Image files/text derived from OCR.

Governance MOU with BHL (each member) BHL is not a legal entity By-Laws Institutional Council Executive Committee: Chair attends EOL Steering Committee BHL Project Director/Deputy

Process Wiki Annual Meetings of the Library Directors Conference Calls –Executive committee (weekly) –Staff in the trenches (weekly) Other Business (meetings or calls) –Special projects –Collections –Technical staff –Local staff –Directors and staff

Mandates Open Access: all content can be reused, repurposed, reformatted. Congruent: must fit in to and contribute to a healthy knowledge ecology

BHL Portal Serve image and text files, create volume, part, piece metatata; ingest page level metadata Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) to link to other services Taxonomic Intelligence: developed at MBLWHOI –Uses sophisticated algorithm to locate name strings from the 9.4 million in NameBank from OCR –Iterative processing of texts increases number of names in Namebank and also the accuracy of recognition. –More tools under development Portal prototype developed at Missouri Botanical Garden based on botanicus.org

What BHL Wants To Do

What BHL Can Do

Seek Permissions from Copyright Holders Opt in Copyright Model: The BHL actively works with professional societies & associations to integrate their publications into the BHL in a way that serves the societies’ missions and goals. BHL is digitizing learned society backfiles & serving them from the BHL Portal at no cost to the societies. Files are available to the publishers for reuse as they see fit.

Legal Sustainability Strategy Avoid legal conflicts Keep copyright infringement risk low Obtain permissions when possible Negotiate alternative agreements Move on if necessary

Financial Sustainability Strategy –Quick ramp-up, high early costs – development, mass scanning, etc. Drive long-term costs down. –Derive some long-term costs from the operating budgets of the member institutions. (examples under consideration: acquisitions budget, staff positions, etc.) –Integrate functions/tasks with wider efforts where appropriate, e.g. mass storage. –Clear roles for staff who wear multiple hats. Two full-time grant funded positions currently but >15 staff who make substantive contributions. –Make the BHL absolutely essential.

Current Structure Internet Archive Web access BHL Portal & Taxonomic Intelligence BHL

Future Structure Web access BHL Portal & Taxonomic Intelligence Internet Archive German node French node European Digital Library French national node Multiple language interfaces BHL Other

Future Directions Multiple languages Links back to EOL Expanded taxonomic intelligence Geolocation More global partnerships Beyond scientists Grey Literature & Archives Automated structural markup of journal literature

QUESTIONS? Connie Rinaldo