Meeting: 2010 BHL Institutional Council Meeting (March 21-22. 2010, New York City)

The 2010 BHL Institutional Council meeting was held in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History, 21-22 March 2010, hosted by AMNH Library Director, Tom Baione.

This was one of the most intense of the leadership meetings from the early days. The meeting itself was only one day, 22 March. People arrived on the 21st and there were some informal meetings over dinner that outlined some governance workings that were formalized at the meeting the next day.

The key move was to delay the scheduled Executive Committee election by temporarily suspending the BHL Bylaws (my knowledge of Roberts Rules of Order helped me figure out the proper way to do this. Doug Holland formalized the process by moving that the election be suspended and the current Executive Committee remain in place while a new bylaws task force convene. This had the benefit of avoiding a certain, and embarrassing, election loss by a key BHL partner and keeping a strong team in place (Cathy Norton, Connie Rinaldo, Doug Holland).  

We also had a presentation on fund raising from the AMNH development team. There were grand plans for a cooperative fund raising effort, but that eventually died due to opposition from individual institutional fund raising priorities.

I also helped to organize how we could count partner "in kind" contributions, a tool that lasted for many years. Martin: put together Member Contribution document. He wants to know if it makes sense and asks that we send suggestions about how and what to report.

There were good reports from Bianca (Lipscomb) Crowley on collections and issue tracking, and scanning operations at partners. Chris Freeland gave a technical update, including usage of the BHL site. BHL Program Director Tom Garnett gave a full financial report. At this point, BHL was in Year 3 of the MacArthur grant with two years left to go. As Tom noted, "BHL needs to get years 4 and 5 right!"

In an update on global BHL activities, Graham Higley (NHM London and Encyclopedia of Life) reported on BHL Europe and other projects. It was proposed a group be formed to monitor/expand those efforts. Nancy Gwinn (Smithsonian), proposed the group be called the BHL Global Coordinating Committee which ended up sticking. Chris Freeland was keen to ensure that BHL come up with a way to ingest content from a variety of providers around the world.

Meeting: 2012 BHL Institutional Council Meeting (15-16 March 2012, Cambridge, MA), Changing of the Guard

The 2012 BHL Institutional Council meeting, held at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, was a landmark for many reasons.

In addition to the usual reports from the BHL membership and BHL staff members (Tom Garnett, Chris Freeland, Grace Costantino, and Bianca Crowley) there was a report on the "Life and Literature" conference held the previous fall at The Field Museum in Chicago.

There were also discussions of the strategic plan as well as spending plans.

Included tours of the Mayr Library collections and a celebratory dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club.

As Deputy BHL Program Director, I gave a presentation that focused on the contributions of Smithsonian Libraries to the BHL. 

• Kalfatovic, M. (2012, March 15). Smithsonian Libraries & The Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2004 - 2012. 2012 BHL Institutional Council Meeting, Cambridge, MA (Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18903011

Changing of the Guard

This meeting also saw significant changes to the leadership of BHL which were the topics of discussion by the BHL Steering Committee.

Cathy, Tom, Graham with custom BHL vests

The original Executive Committee (Graham Higley, NHM London, Cathy Norton, MBLWHOI Library, and Constance Rinaldo, MCZ Harvard) stepped down or into new roles. This was also the last meeting of Tom Garnett as BHL Program Director as he stepped down to retire. It was at this meeting that I was appointed BHL Program Director, officially taking up the role in a few weeks.

It would also turn out to be the last BHL meeting for Chris Freeland as Technical Director as he took a new position at Washington University later in the year.

Connie, Tom, and Cathy

Tom at the Blackboard

Graham and Nancy Gwinn, Smithsonian Libraries

Group photo on the steps of the MCZ

Meeting: The 2017 BHL Annual Meeting travels to Singapore, 14-17 March 2017 and a new Chair of the Executive Committee

In 2017, The National Library Board of Singapore hosted the BHL Annual Meeting as well as a number of side events across the city. The official meeting didn't open until 14 March 2017, but we did open with a dinner on the 13th. Elaine Ng (CEO, the National Library Board, Singapore) and Wai Yin Pryke (Director, National Library, National Library Board of Singapore) were our most gracious hosts.

I'd previously visited Singapore in February 2014 after a Global BHL Meeting in Melbourne, Australia. I was hosted by the National Library Board (NLB) and that visit lead to NLB becoming a BHL member. But more about that visit in another post. 

It was at this meeting that Connie Rinaldo (MCZ, Harvard) took over as Chair of the BHL Executive Committee from Dr. Nancy E. Gwinn (Smithsonian Libraries). The group honored Dr. Gwinn for her years of service to BHL at the conclusion of the meeting.

From left: me, Wai Yin Pryke, Connie,

Jane Smith (NHM, London), Nancy E. Gwinn

For the 2017 BHL Annual Meeting, I travelled to Singapore directly from a Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board Meeting in Scottsdale, AZ (4-8 March 2017). Starting in Arizona (and then travelling via San Francisco cut off a little bit of the jet lag!

From Left: Out on the Town; at the Botanic Garden; Connie and Jane

Over the course of the visit, I did a number of presentations, for the actual meeting, the BHL Open Day Symposium at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, and a public lecture at the National Library of Singapore.

  

• Kalfatovic, M. (2017, March 16). Empowering Global Research in Biodiversity: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. 2017 BHL Annual Meeting, Singapore. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18911858
• Kalfatovic, M. (2017, March 17). 2017 BHL Program Director's Report: 11 Years of Growth & Sustainability. 2017 BHL Annual Meeting, Singapore. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18911907
• Kalfatovic, M. (2017, March 17). A Vast Library of Life: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. 2017 BHL Annual Meeting, Singapore. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18911997

 

From Left: Connie, Drs. Xi and Cui (BHL China): National Library of Singapore; with Ely Wallis (BHL AU)

 

From Left: BHL Meeting; Gardens by the Bay, Super Grove; Connie and Gildas Illien (Paris)

Official Group Photo

Pre-meeting dinner with National Library Board Staff

and John Cole (Library of Congress)

Meeting: 2018 BHL Annual Meeting (12-16 March 2018, Los Angeles) and BHL Program Director's Report

 

The 2018 BHL Annual Meeting was held in Los Angeles, 12-15 March, 2018. The meeting was split over two locations, The Natural History Museum (hosted by Richard Hulser), Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden (hosted by Susan Eubank).

The meeting also so a lot of membership changes with the addition of new members, members moving between levels, creation of the Reciprocal Partnership category.

In many ways this was peak BHL in terms of membership and participation. In 2019, there was a subtle shift in BHL priorities as a focus on data began to surface and new thinking about the value proposition of BHL in a biodiversity commons was formulated.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the "BHL Day" event which featured a talks by two Postdoctoral Fellows at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits, Dr. Alexis Mychajiliw and Dr. Libby Ellwood, as the featured speakers. Grace Costantino (BHL) opened with a talk about BHL and its users, Empowering Global Research followed by Drs. Ellwood (Passenger Pigeons in the Western United States) and Mychajiliw (Eyewitness to Extinction). 

Earlier that day, the group was given a special tour behind the scenes at the Tar Pits. Being in Southern California inspired me to look back to the speech by Walt Disney on the opening of Disneyland in 1955.

• Kalfatovic, M. (2018, March 14). 2018 BHL Program Director's Report: Secretariat & Technical Update. 2018 BHL Annual Meeting, Los Angeles. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18828793

To all who come to this happy

place: Welcome. BHL is your

land. Here age relives fond

memories of the past, and here

youth may savor the challenge

and promise of the future. BHL

is dedicated to the ideals, the

dreams, and the hard facts that

have created the World, with

the hope that it will be a

source of joy and inspiration

to all. -- Walt Disney (not), July 17, 1955

Some side excursions included a visit to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. In off hours, some of us paid a visit to The Last Bookstore and the Santa Monica Pier.

Arriving at the Natural History Museum
(from left: Costantino, Sheffield, Rinaldo, Freeland, Crowley, Lynch)

Ellwood and Mychajiliw

Group Photo

Meeting: 2009 Architecture Meeting (9-10 March 2009, Woods Hole)

Group Photo from 9-10 March 2009 BHL Architecture Meeting (Woods Hole)

In March 2009, BHL held an architecture meeting in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Woods Hole is home to many major scientific organizations including the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), NOAA Fisheries Woods Hole Laboratory , and the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England. The early years of BHL saw many meetings in the Woods Hole facilities.

Tom Garnett (BHL Program Director), Bianca Crowley (BHL Collections Manager), and Chris Freeland (BHL Technical Director from the Missouri Botanical Garden, MOBOT) led the meeting. Chris was joined by other tech staff from MOBOT, including Mike Lichtenberg (who went on to be the key developer of BHL), Phil Cryer, Chris Meyers. Other staff attending from across BHL were:

• Natural History Museum, London (Adrian Smales, Bernard Scaife)
• Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard (Connie Rinaldo, Joe deVeer)
• The New York Botanical Garden (John Mignault), 
• Smithsonian Libraries (Suzanne Pilsk, Martin Kalfatovic), 
• MBLWHOI Library (John Furfey, Ahmed Hamed, Maggie Rioux, Diane Rielinger, Anthony Goddard)
• Encyclopedia of Life/MBL (David Patterson, Patrick Leary)
• BHL Europe/Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin (Henning Scholz)

The combined library of WHOI and MBL, the MBLWHOI Library, was a founding member of BHL and an important node for bioinformatics. The MBLWHOI Library was led by Cathy Norton (also in attendance) who was the BHL Executive Committee Vice-Chair.

The meeting was also significant in that this was perhaps the first BHL meeting attended by a representative of the recently formed BHL Europe (Henning Scholtz).

Other key topics included:

• BHL Article Repository (later to become CiteBank). Presentation by Phil Cryer
• The "Orange Bag" problem (named after an orange bag sent to Chris Freeland with content to upload to BHL) -- original photo here
• A presentation by Chris Freeland on the "BHL Flipbook"
• The team from EOL/MBL also gave a presentation on taxonomic name finding, something that would become a cornerstone of BHL's success

Papers and Laptops

Swope Academic Housing

Tom Garnett, Henning Scholtz, John Furfey

Library and Laboratory: The Marriage of Research, Data, and Taxonomic Literature

Today is an important date for the Biodiversity Heritage Library as it marks the start of a key global gathering, “Library and Laboratory: The Marriage of Research, Data, and Taxonomic Literature”  (London, 5 Feb 2005). The meeting, attended by 80+ bioinformaticians, taxonomists, & librarians from around the world delineated many of the key deliverables later developed by the BHL.

[left] Constance Rinaldo (left, Harvard) & Tom Garnett (Smithsonian); Connie was later the first Secretary of the BHL's Executive Committee & later Vice-Chair & Chair; Tom was the inaugural BHL Program Manager.

People

Many of those attending continued in official and unofficial roles (as advisors) after BHL was formally organized in 2006 and then launched in May of 2007.

[right] Anna Weitzman (Smithsonian), Chris Lyal (NHM), Tom Garnett (Smithsonian) & Graham Higley (NHM). Anna and Chris were important to the informatics development of BHL and Graham was later the first Chair of the BHL Executive Committee.

Doug Holland (Missouri Botanical Garden, below left) was later Secretary of the BHL Executive Committee; in 2004’s “WebWise 2004: Sharing Digital Resources” in Chicago he, along with Chris Freeland (Missouri Botanical Garden), Suzanne Pilsk (Smithsonian), and I did a classic napkin sketch of a digital library for biodiversity in the lounge of the Hotel Intercontinental, Chicago (below right).

The Bioinformaticians

BHL was built on a tripod of libraries, technology and science. A number of these thinkers and theoreticians attended LibLab nad went on to contribute time, code, and administrative know-how to build BHL.

Above Left

Thomas Orrell (left, Smithsonian) & David Remsen (right, MBL WHOI Library); Tom provided bioinformatics guidance for BHL; Dave's innovative & groundbreaking work in taxonomic name finding (uBio) laid the groundwork for much of BHL’s taxonomic infrastructure via the Global Names Architecture. 

Above Center

Sandra Knapp (NHM), plant taxonomist, Fellow of the Royal Society, OBE and key thinker on the topic of organismal taxonomy & important contributor at many BHL meetings.

Above Right

Scott Miller (Smithsonian) & John Kress (Smithsonian); Scott was a key figure in securing millions in financial support for the Biodiversity Heritage Library; John, plant taxonomist & an expert in evolutionary biology is a long-time supporter of BHL

Values

Key values of collaboration, openness, transparency, globalization, & a user/data centric focus were all first elaborated at the conference (which brought together key figures in the origin of @biodivlibrary.bsky.social) & a working meeting at the NHM Librarian’s office the day before.

Pictured, NHM Librarian’s office where Tom Garnett (Smithsonian), Graham Higley (NHM), Bryan Heidorn (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and I sketched out governance of what was to become Biodiversity Heritage Library (4 Feb 2005) [photo from 2014] 

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More People 

Tom Moritz (left, AMNH) & Robert Morris (University of Massachusetts Boston); Tom provided important guidance on BHL governance & technology; Robert, a computer scientist, provided tech guidance for BHL, particularly in his later role with the Encyclopedia of Life.

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Missing from LibLab

I had the privilege to attend "LibLab" in 2005, but missed Chris Freeland (Missouri Botanical Garden, later BHL’s inaugural Technical Director) & Cathy Norton (MBL WHOI Library, later the 1st Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee) -- vital figures in the creation of BHL.

[Cathy Norton, left; Chris Freeland, right]

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Anniversary Season!

In 2016, the Biodiversity Heritage Library celebrated 10 years in London with meetings at the Natural History Museum and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew ... looking forward to hearing what happens at the 20th anniversary gathering in 2026.

Natural History Museum, London (2016)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2016)