digital libraries for science: botanicus and the biodiversity heritage library
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Freeland, II LAPI, 18 NOV 2008
Digital Libraries for Science: Botanicus & Biodiversity Heritage Library
Chris Freeland
Director of Bioinformatics, Missouri Botanical Garden
Technical Director, BHL
Freeland, II LAPI, 18 NOV 2008
Why scan old books?
The cited half-life of publications in taxonomy is longer than in any other scientific discipline
* * * The decay rate is longer than in any scientific discipline
- Macro-economic case for open access, Tom Moritz
Freeland, II LAPI, 18 NOV 2008
Botanicus.org
Workflow
Selection Preparation
Post Production(Re)publication
Digitization
Conservation
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Selection process
Botanische Jahrbucher fur Systematik… 15,052
Revisio Generum Plantarum 13,548
Linnaea 12,695
Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis 11,757
Flora Brasiliensis 9,833
Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 7,599
Repertorium Specierum Novarum Regni Vegetabilis 7,578
Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 5,853
Species Plantarum 5,736
Das Pflanzenreich 5,455
… …
Title Protologues
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Digitization process
6 Full time scanning technicians
3 Indus 5002 book scanners
1 Kodak i280 Sheet feed scanner
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Demonstration:
Connecting a name with its protologue
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Citation resolver
Vol.Title Part Page Year
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How we make the connections
• From Tropicos:– Store structured citation info, not free text
• Volume: 2• Issue: 4• Start Page: 358 • *NOT*: 2(4): 358
– Maintain authority files for bibliographic materials, including Botanicus TitleIDs
• From Botanicus:– Detailed info for every page– Knowledge of other identifiers for book– Flexibility to accommodate multiple cataloging
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Botanicus Progress To Date:
2,400 volumes1 million pages…growing daily…
Freely availableat
www.botanicus.org
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Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org
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BHL Institutions
Museums– American Museum
of Natural History (New York)
– Natural History Museum (London)
– Smithsonian Institution (Washington)
– The Field Museum (Chicago)
Botanical Gardens– Missouri Botanical Garden– New York Botanical Garden– Royal Botanic Garden, Kew
Bioinformatics Institutes – MBL/WHOI– uBio.org
University Libraries– Botany Libraries, Harvard
University– Ernst Meyer Library of the
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
– University of Illinois
Freeland, II LAPI, 18 NOV 2008
Scanning Operations
BHL uses scanning centers established by Internet Archive for mass scanning.
Some partner libraries also scan in-house.
Want to expand international footprint:
•mirrored content•ingest from global data providers
Locations of BHL/IA Scanning Centers
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BHL Progress To Date:
Nearing:24,000 volumes10 million pages…growing daily…
Freely availableat
www.biodiversitylibrary.org
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Open Access Literature
Flora de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Publisher: Buenos Aires :M. Biedma è Hijo,1905.
OCR
XML
JP2
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Name Finding via TaxonFinder
Raw Image Converted to text via OCRName finding via TaxonFinder Extract namesSubmit to NameBankSOAP response
Name Finding in action
with Taxonomic Intelligence…
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BHL Name Finding Stats to date*
• Have mined more than 30 million name string occurrences – 4.4 million unique
• More than 23.7 million name strings verified by NameBank– 1.2 million unique
*17 November 2008
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BHL & JSTOR
• Complementary efforts– Preservation & distribution of scholarly content
• Yet distinct– BHL has thousands of monographs– Rare materials– Content selected specifically for taxonomists &
parataxonomists– All BHL content is open access– For now, BHL is focused on legacy content;
JSTOR on contemporary
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How can BHL enrich LAPI?
Links to:• Protologues
• All occurrences of a name
• Historic texts
• Illustrations & maps
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Contact
Chris Freeland4344 Shaw Blvd.St. Louis, MO [email protected]
http://www.botanicus.orghttp://www.biodiversitylibrary.org