1. Biodiversity Heritage Library for Europe Towards a global library of life Henning Scholz Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

2. Charles Darwin et al. 1847 The cultivation of natural science cannot be efficiently carried on without reference to an extensive library.

3. Charles Davies Sherborn 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. Moreover for accurate work it is necessary for the student to verify every reference he may find; it is not enough to copy from a previous author; he must verify each reference itself from the original. (Epilogue to Index Animalium, March 1922)

4. Analysis of Demand There is a growing need for biodiversity literature Recent analysis of demand indicates that users need an online repository of biodiversity literature (original text content) with a multilingual interface and sophisticated search and filtering functionality The lack of access to the published literature of biodiversity is one of the principal obstacles to efficient and productive research, outreach, and education (Taxonomic impediment to research) Most of the biodiversity literature is held in a few libraries making this literature unavailable for wider use by a broad range of potential users (scientists and non-scientists) The cited half-life of publications in taxonomy is longer than in any other scientific discipline (Revisions of taxonomy require seeing all prior literature) Repatriation of knowledge to the developing world

5. BHL History Library and Laboratory Conference in February 2005 demonstrated the growing need for digital biodiversity literature. Several libraries began meeting and planning for a grand digitizing plan. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was funded to integrate species level information and used BHL as the literature and scanning component. Though BHL has is composed of libraries it has been a domain-specific program, not just a digital library project. It arose from and is responsive to the biodiversity community, which the primary audience.

6. BHL 2007 SIL, MOBOT, AMNH, Harvard Botany Library, MCZ, MBL/WHOI, Field Museum, NYBG NHM, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

7. BHL Accomplishments 37,233 volumes, 14,990,986 pages online (July 30) OCR, page level access Indexed by traditional library access points (title, author etc.) as well as taxonomic name from a service Taxon Finder Cite in beta – a repository for communities of users to deposit vetted bibliographies of key taxonomic citations and associated metadata and digital (pdf) copies. 400,000 individual species pages from the Encyclopedia of Life link to pages in the BHL Portal Set of metadata for reuse by other project.

8. BHL Preservation Committed to long-term storage, curation, and preservation of digital text assets for the world-wide biodiversity community BHL is a steward for this literature, which is the common heritage of humanity. “Science has no borders.” To keep this content available and open for the future requires careful organizational planning. Preservation is both a technical and political/social process.

9. BHL Portal http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

10. Taxonomic Intelligence

11. The genera and species of orchidaceous plants / by John Lindley. Publication info: London : Ridgways, 1830-1840.

12. Taxonomic Intelligence

13. Name finding in action Raw Image

14. Name finding in action Converted to text via OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

15. Name finding in action Name finding via TaxonFinder

16. Name finding in action Extract names Submit to NameBank

17. Name finding in action SOAP response (Simple Object Access Protocol )

18. Name Finding Stats Have mined more than 42 million name string occurrences to date (12 May 2009) More than 30 million name strings verified by NameBank - 1.5 million unique

19. Top OCR errors Study in 2008 found that for sample population of 3,003 names, 1,056 were incorrectly transcribed by OCR. http://biodiversitylibrary.blogspot.com/2008/10/evaluation-of-taxonomic-name-finding.html 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 euuicnlruhheeuuicnlruhhe  c I n l e v i ii l ii o 1212 Insert Space Omit Space OCR errors OCR error rate for names

20. Article repository BHL stores volumes, no articles BHL portal: option to generate PDF-files (articles) BHL need a way to display these PDFs BHL want to extend contribution functionality to users  upload of own bibliographies/articles

21. Article repository

22. to be launched September 2009

23. BHL-Europe

24. Main principles: No digitisation  BHL-Europe is not funded to digitise Best Practice Network  no research and development project  building a solution with existing (state-of-the-art) technologies and bring it onto the market

25. BHL-Europe Objectives 1 multilingual access point EUROPEANA & BHL Provide a multilingual access point for the search and retrieval of biodiversity content through EUROPEANA & BHL Review and test approaches for the establishment and management of multilingual biodiversity digital libraries interoperability Improve the interoperability of European biodiversity digital libraries by the innovative application of proven technologies (incl. metadata repositories, deduplication tools, workflow systems) large-scale implementation Promote the adoption of best practice methods, standards and specifications for the large-scale implementation of such repositories general public Facilitate the open access (= free of charge) to taxonomic literature for a large number of target users including the general public

26. BHL-Europe Objectives 2 Raise awareness Raise awareness and ensure that the project outputs are known and used by the target users and that the approach directly addresses user needs long-term preservation Develop operational strategies for long-term preservation and sustainability of the data produced by national biodiversity digitisation programmes initiation of scanning initiatives Facilitate and enable the initiation of scanning initiatives in European countries not yet involved in digitisation programmes and improve the infrastructure for digital libraries in all EU countries Negotiate with Rights Holders Negotiate with Rights Holders to enable access to in- copyright content

27. BHL-Europe Partners 1 Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, DE Natural History Museum, London, UK Natural History Museum, London, UK Narodni muzeum, Prague, CZ Narodni muzeum, Prague, CZ European Digital Library Foundation, NL European Digital Library Foundation, NL Angewandte Informationstechnik Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, AT ATOS Origin Integration France, FR Freie Universität Berlin (Botanic Garden & Museum), DE Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Stiftung Öffentlichen Rechts, DE Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Stiftung Öffentlichen Rechts, DE Land Oberösterreich (Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen), AT Land Oberösterreich (Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen), AT Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, AT Hungarian Natural History Museum, HU Hungarian Natural History Museum, HU Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, PL University of Copenhagen (Natural History Museum of Denmark), DK University of Copenhagen (Natural History Museum of Denmark), DK Stichting Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Naturalis, Leiden, NL Stichting Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Naturalis, Leiden, NL

28. BHL-Europe Partners 2 National Botanic Garden of Belgium, BE National Botanic Garden of Belgium, BE Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, BE Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, BE Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, BE Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, BE Bibliothèque nationale de France, FR Bibliothèque nationale de France, FR Museum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris, FR Museum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris, FR Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid, ES Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid, ES Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK Università degli Studi di Firenze (Museo di Storia Naturale), Florence, IT Missouri Botanical Garden, USA Missouri Botanical Garden, USA Smithsonian Institution, USA Smithsonian Institution, USA Species 2000, UK John Wiley & Sons limited, UK Helsingin yliopisto, Helsinki, FI Helsingin yliopisto, Helsinki, FI Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DE

29. BHL-Europe organisation

30. BHL-Europe network

31. BHL-Global

33. Darwin Repository The “Greenest” data centre in Europe/World. Multiple integrated repositories reducing the cost for storage, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity significantly for users Storage and playout for major international Biodiversity projects – EOL & BHL A scanning centre for high quality, low cost, mass digitization. A “dark” library store for digitized library stock from partner institutions. More details by the end of this year

34. Conclusion The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) project is digitising biodiversity literature for open access via the Web BHL-Europe is improving the interoperability of European biodiversity digital libraries by the innovative application of proven technologies BHL-Global brings taxonomic literature for free to the computer at your home desktop and facilitates your research activities significantly

35. Call for participation Libraries: Do you have a digital repository of scanned literature? Are you planning to start scanning operations? Users: Do you have criticism and feedback you would like to share? Do you have ideas how to improve BHL? Scientific community: You might be asked to improve the OCR! You might be asked to actively contribute to name databases! Do you have very urgent questions or issues now?  our specialists are still sitting next door in Naturalis working on the next steps and can help you to find a solution. Otherwise....

36. Dr. Henning Scholz Project Coordinator BHL-Europe & (Palaeo)Malacologist Museum für Naturkunde Invalidenstraße 43 D-10115 Berlin Germany Tel.: +49-30-2093-8864 Fax: +49-30-2093-8868 Email: henning.scholz@mfn-berlin.de BHL-Email: bhl-europe@mfn-berlin.de bhl-europe@mfn-berlin.de More information: http://www.bhl-europe.eu http://www.bhl-europe.eu …questions are welcome now