how did we get here from there? the origin story of the biodiversity heritage library

Martin R. KalfatovicTwitter@BHLProgDirector

Program Director

Biodiversity Heritage Library

Smithsonian Libraries

How Did We Get Here from There?The Origin Story of The Biodiversity Heritage Library

Library Leaders Forum 2017

11-13 October 2017| San Francisco

Natural History, circa1599

Inspiring Discovery through Free Access

to Biodiversity Knowledge

Over 10 years of inspiring discovery

15th

-21st

centuries

through free & open accessto biodiversity literature & archives

from the

Mission

The Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research

methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity

literature openly available to the world as part of a

global biodiversity community.

“BHL is fantastic! It has made a huge

difference in my work - sometimes

providing access to texts I wouldn’t

otherwise be able to get, sometimes by

giving me the gift of my own time...”

Dr. Leigh Anne RiedmanNASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral FellowDepartment of Earth and Planetary SciencesHarvard University

1 Internet Archive Hero Award

The BHL Origin Story …

Once upon a time ...

Well, it wasn’t a

primordial swamp,

but at a 2004 meeting

in Telluride, high in

the Colorado Rocky

Mountains where a

number of brilliant

folk got together

including Tom

Garnett, the first BHL

Program Director and

Brewster Kahle ...

Tom Garnett

BHL Program Director

2006-2012

The goal is to

digitize taxonomic

texts and make

them available ...

…it’s very complex, we’re

developing a formula ...

* Actually, the J(x) definition of

the Explicit Formula for the

Prime Counting Function

*

Dudes, why don’t

you just scan it

all?

Me and Brewster at the

De Lange Conference VI

Rice University, 2007

Just scan it all? You

gotta be kidding,

that’s gotta be a

Rocky Mountain

High!

But we got busy … and got around the world ...

And we did scan it all … well not all …

yet...

“The cultivation of natural

history cannot be efficiently

carried out without reference to

an extensive library.”

Charles Darwin, et al (1847)

We now live in what is being called the Anthropocene,

a time that is perhaps seeing the Earth’s Sixth Great

Extinction ...

The "normal" rate of extinction is one species every four

years. Today, species are going extinct at a rate of FOUR

per HOUR.

“BHL provides access to literature that would

otherwise be impossible to find or even know

that it existed. It is important to have access to a

biodiversity library that has done so well to

document the past, as this is vital to our

understanding of the future.”

Dean JaniakBiologist

Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce

Thank You & Onward!

Twitter @ BHLProgDirector