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. 

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.

Meeting: Catalogue of Life Global Team Meeting (19-21 March 2019, Champaign, IL, Illinois Natural History Survey)

BHL had worked with the Catalogue of Life (CoL) for a number of years and I had attended CoL meetings in various locals in the past.

This meeting was held in Champaign, IL, at the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS). The INHS is the home base for the Global Names Architecture (GNA) team (since they moved from Woods Hole a while back). It was great to see Dmitry (Dima) Mozzherin and Geoffrey Ower. 

The meeting also gave me a chance to catch up with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) BHL team of Kelli Trei and Susan Braxton. 

From Left: Peter, Dima, Olaf:

Ed DeWalt (INHS) was the host of the meeting that included other key players including Peter Schalk (CoL/Naturalis), Tom Orrell (ITIS/Smithsonian), Yury Roskov (Species 2000), Markus Doering (GBIF), Leen Vandepitte (WoRMS), David Remsen (Marine Biological Lab), Olaf Bánki (CoL), Chuck Miller (Missouri Botanical Garden), and others.

It was also great to walk around the UIUC campus which I visited a number of times for both BHL and other digital library work.

I gave the following presentation on BHL to the group.

• Kalfatovic, M. (2019, March 21). BHL &The Catalogue of Life. Catalogue of Life Global Team Meeting, Champaign, IL (Illinois Natural History Survey). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19037959

Meeting: 2024 GBIF Midterm Meeting (18-19 March 2024, Copenhagen)

As a member of the second chair of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Budget Committee (and member of the United States GBIF Delegation) I was invited to the annual GBIF Midterm meetings in Copenhagen. The past years, during my Budget Committee membership, the Budget Committee portion of the meeting had been virtual (for practical reasons or due to COVID-19).

I'd been to Copenhagen previously for GBIF travel, so I knew my way around a bit.

This would be my last GBIF meeting as BHL Program Director (and employee of Smithsonian Libraries and Archives), but I didn't know that at the time! I have continued my participation and engagement with GBIF as I moved to the IIIF Consortium.