Presentation: 2 presentations for the 2016 BHL Annual Meeting and 7th Global BHL Meeting (11-15 April 2016, London)

The 2016 BHL Annual meeting marked the 10th anniversary (by some counts) of BHL. I'll reflect more on that meeting in a future post, but for now, here are the two presentations that I did, one for the BHL Day event and the Program Director's Update.

• Kalfatovic, M. (2016, April 12). The Biodiversity Heritage Library: 10+1 and Beyond: Looking Forward. 2016 BHL Annual Meeting and 7th Global BHL Meeting, London, United Kingdom (Natural History Museum). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19545214.
• Kalfatovic, M. (2016, April 13). 2016 BHL Program Director's Report. 2016 BHL Annual Meeting and 7th Global BHL Meeting, London, United Kingdom (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19545342.

Meeting: Information Futures Institute (12 April 2008, Berkman Center, Harvard University)

Berkman Center

The Information Futures Institute (IFI) was (is?) an informal, recurring group, workshop, or collaborative initiative focused on the future of libraries, information science, and technology. I was introduced to the group by Cathy Norton (MBLWHOI Library) and Cathy invited me to a meeting of the group held at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

I got to meet a bunch of very interesting people at the session, including a number of Berkman people. Those attending included David Lankes (library thinker), Lewis Hyde (author of The Gift) and the brilliant, funny and always entertaining David Weinberger. David and I would go on to move in similar circles around projects like the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

Never heard about the group after my attending this meeting and not sure what became of it.

• Kalfatovic, M. (2008, April 12). "Oh Time, Thy Pyramids!" The Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Unchaining of the Universal Library(?)‏. Information Futures Institute Meeting (IFI), Cambridge, MA (Berkman Center, Harvard University). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19539675

Meeting: EOD - eBooks on Demand (10-11 April 2014, Innsbruk, Austria)

The Books2ebooks (EOD - eBooks on Demand) network held an international conference focused on the use and re-use of digital content on 11 April 2014 in Innsbruck, Austria. The project focused on digitizing and increasing the visibility of public domain library books from libraries across Europe.

The meeting opened with a reception on the evening of 10 April in the library spaces.

I was invited to the meeting as the keynote speaker and asked to talk about BHL.

• Kalfatovic, M. (2014, April 11). Building for Demand: The Growth of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. 2014 EOD - eBooks on Demand Network Meeting, Innsbruk, Austria. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19514954

I really liked giving this talk and was able to use a number of various themes I'd developed over the years, Plato, Borges, etc. and got to do it high in the Austrian Alps in the beautiful spaces of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Tirol. 

Quote from Phadrus: “You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” (Plato. Phaedrus. Trans. Fowler, 1925. 275a)

Meeting: I Annotate: Annoto Ergo Sum (10-12 April 2013, San Francisco)

I've attended a few of the I Annotate conferences, this, I Annotate: Annoto Ergo Sum (11-12 April 2013) was the first. Organized by Hypothes.is (and it's founder Dan Whaley), I Annotate always drew a crowd of the most interesting people. The meeting was held in the conference facilities of Fort Mason Center (San Francisco). One of the problems with Fort Mason is it looks right out over the Golden Gate, so can be distracting at times. 

Before the meeting, I took the opportunity for a visit to the California Academy of Sciences (a BHL partner) and met with the library staff. Also on this trip was Suzanne Pilsk (Smithsonian) and Chris Freeland (Missouri Botanical Garden). Cal Academy is a great place. I used to go there as a child (to the old dark and dusty building, so the new shiny museum with the eco-garden roof is always a surprise) and loved the coelacanth, the "living fossil," and a type of lobe-finned fish once thought extinct, that has, over the years, competed with the dodo for my attention.

Dan Whaley

A world of visitors

BHL

I Annotate Meeting

The first day kicked off with a series of talks. The keynote was by Caterina Fake (then of Findery, previously a founder of Flickr). Other talks included "Shared Canvas: Digital Facsimiles via Distributed Annotation" by Rob Sanderson (then at Los Alamos National Lab) who I crossed paths with for many years and is now a IIIF Editor.

For lunch, it was a taco truck parked out front (not sure if this was my first time of this very San Francisco treat).

JPB

On day two, the keynote way by John Perry Barlow (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and lyricist for the Grateful Dead. JPB and I crossed paths many times over the years. Usually in San Francisco, but the first time was at a meeting in Washington, DC in around 1996 or so where we both arrived late and ended up sitting next to each other in the back of the room (before he went up to give a keynote).

One of the talks on day two was “Rap Genius” by Jeremy Dean (Rap Genius). Rap Genius, a lyrics annotator, later morphed into just plain Genius and then over the years became so overrun with intrusive ads that its become almost unusable.

John Kunze (then of California Digital Library) gave a talk “Annotating Research Datasets” and “Enabling the distributed curation of the Astronomical literature through annotations” was given by Alberto Accomazzi (Smithsonian/NASA ADS).

Next up was yours truly doing the presentation:

• Kalfatovic, M. (2013, April 11). Building on Linnaeus: 260 Years of Taxonomic Annotation. I Annotate: Annoto Ergo Sum, San Francisco. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19503148

Because this was San Francisco, another of the attendees was Ted Nelson (of Project Xanadu fame) who just happened to be there. 

Ted Nelson

24,000th iNaturalist Observation: Atalantycha bilineata (Two-lined Leatherwing)

On 9 April 2026 I made my 24,000th iNaturalist observation (at left). The observation was of Atalantycha bilineata (Two-lined Leatherwing) spotted on a walk through Hillside Park (in Arlington, VA). I ended up observing three individuals (see all my observations of Atalantycha bilineata here).

Atalantycha bilineata was originally described by American entomologist Thomas Say in 1823 under the binomial name Cantharis bilineata in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (volume 3, page 182):

6. C. bilineatus. Rufous; elytra black; thorax with two black lines. Inhabits the United States.

The eagle-eyed will note that Say indicates the species as C. bilineatus, not C. bilineata. Why you ask, well, the discrepancy arises from the gender of the species name, which must agree with the genus name Cantharis (feminine). While it was sometimes historically listed with the masculine suffix -us, the correct scientific name based on ICZN rules is Cantharis bilineata.

At right: Say, T. (1823). Cantharis bilineata. In Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (Vol. 3, p. 182). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19498272

The species had kept the Cantharis bilineata name until 2005 when Sergey Kazantsev's review of the genus established the new Nearctic genus Atalantycha to accommodate certain species, including A. bilineata as a new combination.

2022 WeDigBio Symposium: "The Critical Roles of Libraries in Understanding Earth's Biota" (8 April 2022 - Virtual)

WeDigBio is a project of the larger iDigBio project funded by the National Science Foundation. Both "DigBio" projects run regular events and trainings. In 2022, I participated in the virtual symposium, The Role of Libraries in Understanding Earth’s Biota where I gave a presentation on BHL.

The WeDigBio Symposium entitled “The Role of Libraries in Understanding Earth’s Biota.” This symposium will be from 3–5 pm ET, Friday, April 8, and it is scheduled to include talks by Darlene Cavalier (Professor of Practice, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University), Martin Kalfatovic (Associate Director, Smithsonian Libraries), and others with valuable perspectives. -- iDigBio Website

• Kalfatovic, M. (2022, April 8). Biodiversity Literature in Support of Citizen Science: An Introduction to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. WeDigBio Symposium: The Role of Libraries in Understanding the Earth's Biota, Virtual. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19477174

• A recording for the April WeDigBio 2022 symposium "The Critical Roles of Libraries in Understanding Earth's Biota" can be found at Vimeo. 

Meeting: 2025 GBIF Midterm Meeting (8-9 April 2025, Copenhagen)

I traveled to Copenhagen in early April for the 2025 GBIF Midterm meeting. This was my 2nd GBIF Midterm (see links below to my 1st and 3rd). This gathering brings together the GBIF Executive Committee, Science Committee, Nodes Steering Group, and, for me, the GBIF Budget Committee (where I served at the time as 2nd Vice Chair). 

Members of the GBIF Secretariat also attend portions of the meeting and it provides a good look into the plans for the coming year that will be further explored during the GBIF Governing Board meeting held later in the year, in Bogota (in October)

I also had a chance to visit the Botanical Garden during the trip.

See also the following posts:

• Meeting: 2024 GBIF Midterm Meeting (18-19 March 2024, Copenhagen)
• Meeting: 2026 GBIF Midterm Meeting (24-25 March 2026, Copenhagen)

Presentation: "The Biodiversity Heritage Library" for the "Exploring the Four Elements Meeting" (8 April 2015) at The Morgan Library (New York)

I was a member of the advisory committee for the "Exploring the Four Elements: Toward a Digital Environmental History of the Americas" grant to the John Carter Brown Library by the National Endowment for the Humanities (see the grant narrative here).

Meetings of the group were held both at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island and in other locations. In this case, I gave a presentation for the group at a meeting held at The Morgan Library in New York. 

Kalfatovic, M. (2015, April 8). The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Exploring the Four Elements Meeting, New York City (Morgan Library). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19446056.

As with most meetings, we got a great tour of some of the treasures of the collection.

A Visit to the Statens Naturhistoriske Museum (Copenhagen) in March 2026

While attending the 2026 GBIF Midterm Meeting in Copenhagen (Denmark) I had a chance to visit the recently (re)opened Statens Naturhistoriske Museum. On previous visits to Copenhagen, I'd visited the museum when it was located at the University of Copenhagen, near the Fælledparken (Østerbro). 

The new museum (not yet fully open) has a fascinating history, but most interestingly, it can trace it's roots back to Ole Worm and his Museum Wormianum: 

The history of the individual departments, which now are part of the united Natural History Museum of Denmark, can be traced back to the 17th century. One historical figure in particular played a crucial role in the creation of the Danish national heritage, namely Ole Worm (1588–1654). His cabinet of natural curiosities, the Museum Wormianum, formed together with the Royal Danish Cabinet of Curiosities the nucleus of what later would become the Geological Museum and the Zoological Museum. In 1621 Ole Worm also became the director of the Botanical Garden, which at that time had been quite neglected. Here he introduced a large variety of medicinal plants and rare species from abroad. -- Wikipedia

The museum now houses the exhibition, "A cabinet of curiosities: Ole Worm’s ‘Museum Wormianum’ (1655)" a recreation of the Museum Wormianum by artist Rosamond Purcell. In this installation of the work, the museum has also included some of the original artifacts from Worm's Museum in a nearby exhibition case, including the "crocodile on the ceiling" and "deer jaw in tree". 

Also of interest to me (of course) is the Raphus cucullatus (Linnaeus, 1758) in their collection.

See also the following posts:

• Meeting: 2026 GBIF Midterm Meeting (24-25 March 2026, Copenhagen)
• iNaturalist Observations: In and Around Copenhagen (22-31 March 2026)

Meeting: 2026 GBIF Midterm Meeting (24-25 March 2026, Copenhagen)

I traveled to Copenhagen in late March for the 2026 GBIF Midterm meeting. This gathering brings together the GBIF Executive Committee, Science Committee, Nodes Steering Group, and, for me, the GBIF Budget Committee (where I serve as 1st Vice Chair). 

Members of the GBIF Secretariat also attend portions of the meeting and it provides a good look into the plans for the coming year that will be further explored during the GBIF Governing Board meeting (this year being held in September in Oslo, Norway.

From left: Liam, Pierre, Swag

Deliberations during the meeting are not public, but the one exciting bit was a preview of some ideas to mark the 20th anniversary of GBIF during the course of 2026.

Flying into Copenhagen

See also the following posts:

• iNaturalist Observations: In and Around Copenhagen (22-31 March 2026)
• A Visit to the Statens Naturhistoriske Museum (Copenhagen)

iNaturalist Observations: In and Around Copenhagen (22-31 March 2026)

Nesting Mute Swan

I attended the 2026 GBIF Midterm meetings in Copenhagen in March 2026. I added on a few days of holiday to visit some of my favorites in the city.

The weather wasn't really good for a lot of observations and I didn't get out of the city, so many of my observations were of birds (especially around the Lakes). 

Total: 23-31 March 2026 (as of 1 April 2026)

• Observations: 89

• Species: 38

Notables

• Eurasian wigeon (Mareca penelope)

• Great Tit (Parus major)

• Deer (partial jaw)

Here are all my observations from various trips to Denmark: Denmark: My Observations

Jaw of a species of Dear

First Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) observation of the year

 

Last year, I made my first Lycorma delicatula observation on 13 April 2025. This year, it was 10 days earlier (3 April 2025) in nearly the same spot. With the large number of (visible) egg masses in my neighborhood, I fear it will be another booming year. 

In 2025, I made 1,519 observations in Arlington, Virginia.

Two biodiversity/bioinformatics meetings in Belgium and the Netherlands (2-4 April 2015)

As Program Director for the Biodiversity Heritage Library, I participated in many meetings around bioinformatics. In April 2015, two important meetings were held in Oostende (Belgium) and Leiden (Netherlands).

The first of the two meetings took place in Oostende. The meeting was the Catalogue of Life Mini-Symposium held at the Vlaams Instituut Voor de Zee (VLIZ). In addition to staff from the Catalogue of Life, Donald Hobern (GBIF), David Remsen (Marine Biological Lab), and Tom Orrell (Smithsonian/ITIS) were attending. 

At the Symposium, I gave the following presentation:

Kalfatovic, M. (2015, April 2). Looking Forward: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Catalogue of Life Mini-Symposium (CoL), Oostende (Belgium). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19393206

The weather in Oostende was challenging, high winds and rain; we also had to take a short ferry ride to the meeting space. All the things that make biodiversity meetings special.

Following the meeting in Oostende, many of the group moved on to Leiden for a focused meeting on the work of BHL, EOL, ITIS, and GBIF. In addition to those at the CoL meeting, Bob Corrigan (EOL), Peter Schalk (CoL/GBIF) were in attendance. The meetings were held in the offices of Naturalis, then still in their temporary quarters in the Pesthuis before moving to their new building.

Group photos are always a great part of the meeting, here, we posed as Dutch Masters:

I was also able to take a bit of personal time and visited Amsterdam, Ghent, and the fabulous tulip gardens of Keukenhof.