A Global Library of Life: The Biodiversity Heritage Library

MARTIN R. KALFATOVIC :: SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES :: NFAIS 2008 ANNUAL CONFERENCE :: 25 FEBRUARY 2008

A Global Library for Life

Martin R. KalfatovicSmithsonian Institution Libraries25 February 2008


The cultivation of natural science cannot be efficiently carried on without reference to an extensive library

Charles Darwin, et al (1847)

Darwin, C. R. et al. 1847. Copy of Memorial to the First Lord of the Treasury [Lord John Russell], respecting the Management of the British Museum. Parliamentary Papers, Accounts and Papers 1847, paper number (268), volume XXXIV.253 (13 April): 1-3. [Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online]


Taxonomic descriptions must be published for the name to be valid

Publications must be available to the public through trusted sources

Libraries have been the traditional place

Taxonomic Literature


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 accessTom Moritz



Over 250 years of systematic description of life

Systema naturae (10th ed. 1758) by Carl von Linné



2003. Telluride. Encyclopedia of Life meeting

February 2005. London. Library and Laboratory: the Marriage of Research, Data and Taxonomic Literature

May 2005. Washington. Ground work for the Biodiversity Heritage Library

June 2006. Washington. Organizational and Technical meeting

August 2006. New York Botanical Garden. BHL Director’s Meeting.

October 2006. St. Louis/San Francisco. Technical meetings

February 2007. Museum of Comparative Zoology. Organizational meeting

May 2007. Encyclopedia of Life and BHL Portal Launch. Washington DC.

BHL Timeline


American Museum of Natural History (New York)

Field Museum (Chicago)

Natural History Museum (London)

Smithsonian Institution Libraries (Washington)

Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis)

New York Botanical Garden (New York)

BHL Members


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

BHL Members


BHL MembersUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-

Champaign (contributing member)

Scheme for addition of European and Asian partners underway

Additional categories of membership under consideration


BHL Focus: Literature




• Core literature pre-1923: 100 million pages (?)

• All pre-1923: 120-150 million pages

• All literature: 280-320 million pages



• 1.3 million catalogue records • 73% are monographs

(remainder are serials at title-level)

• 63% is English language material

• The next most popular language (9%) is German

• About 30% of material was published before 1923

BHL Collections


The Internet Archive

• 501(c)(3) organization• Dedicated to “Universal Access to

Human Knowledge”• Founder of the Open Content

Alliance• Provides:

– Mass scanning– Archival storage of files– Image processing– Technology development


Scribe Scanner

• Single Scribe Machine– Custom built by the

Internet Archive– Human operated– 3,500 page per shift per

day


BHL Scanning Centers

Northeast Regional Scanning Center 10 Scribe machines MBL/WHOI Harvard

New York Public Library 10 Scribe machines AMNH NYBG



University of Illinois 2 Scribe machines

Natural History Museum, London 1 Scribe machine

Missouri Botanical Garden Non-Scribe operation



Washington, DC 1 Scribe machine at

Smithsonian Libraries 10 Scribe facility at

Library of Congress with Fedlink (operational Spring 2008)


Scanning Stats: Now 5.5 million plus total pages scanned

(and growing daily) <90,000 Fieldiana (via UIUC) >100,000 pages each Harvard, New

York Botanical Garden, 225,000+ pages from the American

Museum of Natural History 400,000+ from Smithsonian Libraries 500,000+ from the Natural History

Museum, London 800,000 Missouri Botanical Garden

Library 1,000,000+ from the MBL/WHOI library


But what about ...



BHL \ Google(the difference between)

Bibliographic accuracy for all materials

Ability to re-purpose and reuse all data as needed

Congruence of original printed materials to digital versions


Persistent Identifiers Stable URL Handle DOI BICI/SICI ISSN ISBN LSIDs

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org


Structural Markup<article> <title>A BRIEF CONSIDERATION OF

CERTAIN POINTS IN THE MORPHOLOGY OFTHE FAMILY CHALCIDID^E.*.</title>

<author>L. O. HOWARD.</author> <volume>1</volume> <issue>2</issue> <start_page>65</start_page> <end_page>86</end_page> <start_count_page>85</start_count_page> <end_count_page>106</end_count_page>

<start_page_image_file>3908800908001101smthrich_0085.djvu</start_page_image_file>

<end_page_image_file>3908800908001101smthrich_0106.djvu</end_page_image_file>

</article>


Semantic Markup

GoldenGATEThe intention of the GoldenGATE editor is to build a bridge between NLP components and XML markup of natural language text according to arbitrary XML schemas. It allows the deployment of NLP components to marking up the bodies of literature they were designed for. In this way, it enables transforming the texts into XML content according to an XML schema that was designed to gain maximum benefit from the knowledge provided in them.

Integrated Open Taxonomic Access (INOTAXA)


10.7 million name strings in NameBank

Uses sophisticated algorithm (TaxonGrab) to locate likely name strings in OCR text

Iterative processing of BHL texts will both increase the number of name strings in NameBank and increase the accuracy of name string recognition

Taxonomic Intelligence


BHL & Publishers


Permissions

• Seek permissions from copyright holders

• Opt in Copyright Model: The BHL will actively work with professional societies and associations to integrate their publications into the BHL in a way that serves the societies’ missions and goals

• BHL will digitize learned society backfiles and mount them through the BHL Portal at no cost.

• Will provide a set of files to the publishers for reuse as they see fit


BHL Advantages• Use of the articles will increase

as evidenced by citation upsurge• Long-term management of the

digital assets is provided by the BHL at no cost

• Publishers’ content is embedded in the emerging knowledge ecology that is sweeping biology in this century

• Structural markup of backfiles into conformance with NLM DTD (just starting)


Successes

• Entomological News• Journal of Hymenoptera

Research

• Herpetological Review

• Publications of the San Diego Natural History Museum

• California Academy of Sciences publications

• And more ...


BHL Portal• Library catalog-like interface

to BHL literature• Enhanced structural

analysis to provide volume/issue/article page access to the literature

• Iterative development based on feedback from user community

• Provide access to two key audiences:–Humans–Machines


Page Delivery


Taxonomic Intelligence


Search Browse

Web 2.0 Features


Discovered Bibliographies


Initial grant from the MacArthur and Sloan Foundations (as part of the Encyclopedia of Life grant)

Additional support from parent institutions

Additional grants being actively pursued by BHL and individual members

Funding



Structure of the Encyclopedia of Life

Serine Molecule


Serine Molecule

Synthesis CenterField Museum

BiodiversityHeritageLibrary

SecretariatSmithsonian Education &

OutreachSmithsonian/Harvard

InformaticsMarine Biological

Laboratory & MOBOT


EOL Species Pages

Built from a variety of new and existing sources

Views available for varying levels of expertise from novice to expert

Legacy literature a key component of the EOL species pages




• Co-evolving bioinformatics resources produce a rich information ecology:

– Consortium for the Barcoding of Life (CBOL) with gene sequences deposited in GenBank.

– GBIF’s Electronic Catalog of Taxonomic Names

– Herbaria and museum specimen databases

Looking Forward


• Quick ramp-up high early costs – development, mass scanning, etc.

• 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

Looking Forward


Institutions that are creating the BHL exist to persist through time. That’s an important part of their business

The future is uncertain, the technology landscape changes, people pass on. So create consortial structures that are low-overhead, flexible, and can respond quickly

The Long Now Strategy


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.

Charles Davies Sherborn, Epilogue to Index Animalium,

March 1922

A Global Library for Life




Thank You ... for sticking around!


Biodiversity Heritage Libraryhttp://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

Biodiversity Heritage Library Bloghttp://biodiversitylibrary.blogspot.com

Encyclopedia of Lifehttp://www.eol.org/

Smithsonian Institution Librarieshttp://www.sil.si.edu/

Universal Biological Indexer and Organizerhttp://www.ubio.org/

Biologia Centrali-Americana http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/bca/

LINKS

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

http://biodiversitylibrary.blogspot.com/

http://www.eol.org/

http://www.sil.si.edu/



http://www.ubio.org/

http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/bca/


Thanks to: Chris Freeland, Missouri Botanical

Garden Tom Garnett, The Biodiversity Heritage

Library The staff at the Internet Archive

Images from The Galaxy of Images, Smithsonian

Libraries (www.sil.si.edu/imagegalaxy) Martin R. Kalfatovic Suzanne C. Pilsk Bernard Scaife

CREDITS

http://www.sil.si.edu/imagegalaxy