Meeting: Boston Library Consortium (18 March 2008, Boston Public Library) and BHL Presentation

Boston Public Library: Free to All

Ahead of the 2008 BHL Architecture Meeting (18-19 March 2008) and BHL Director's Meeting (21 March 2008), Chris Freeland and I gave presentations at the Boston Library Consortium (BLC)Meeting held at Boston Public Library (BPL). 

The BLC meeting was hosted by Barbara G. Preece who served as the Executive Director of the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) from 2000 to 2009. 

The meeting also included a tour of the Internet Archive scanning center at BPL and some other behind the scenes look at BPL operations including work being done on the Adams Family Papers.

Chris Freeland presenting

A rapt audience

From right: Cathy Norton, Barbara Preece,
Matt Person, Diane Rielinger

• Kalfatovic, M. (2008, March 18). A Global Library for Life: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Boston Library Consortium (March 2008 Meeting), Boston, MA (Boston Public Library). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19034559

Meeting: 2015 BHL Annual Meeting and BHL Day (17-18 March 2015, The Field Museum, Chicago)

The 2015 BHL Annual Meeting was notable for a number of events, but the key feature was the first BHL Day forum. Modeled in an event held in January 2014 as part of the Global BHL meeting held in Melbourne, Australia. 

Christine (Giannoni) Weiss, Director of The Field Museum Library, organized and introduced the event. Dr. Debra Moskovits, Vice President, Science & Education at The Field welcomed all the BHL attendees. 

The featured speaker was Dr. Matt von Konrat (Head of Botanical Collections and Adjunct Curator & McCarter Collections Manager of Bryophytes and Pteridophytes), who spoke on the topic, "BHL: A Report from the Field." 

It was also announced at the meeting that The Field Museum would move from Affiliate to Full member.

The meeting (led by BHL Executive Committee Chair, Nancy Gwinn) covered many usual topics, including budget and spending, membership composition, strategic planning, and preliminary planning for the 2016 BHL Annual meeting, which would included a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the BHL. 

Dr. Matt von Konrat

The meeting also so attendance from members of the Global BHL community including BHL Africa (Anne-Lise Fourie), BHL Singapore (Eric Chen), and BHL Mexico (Patricia Koleff).

Group Photo

My 2015 Program Director's Report:

• Kalfatovic, M. (2015, March 17). Looking Forward: The Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2015-2016. 2015 BHL Annual Meeting and BHL Day, Chicago, IL (The Field Museum). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19010734

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: BHL Institutional Council meeting (8-9 March 2011, Washington, DC)

At this meeting (which took place 8-9 March 2011 in Washington, DC at the Smithsonian Libraries), the governing body of the BHL was termed the BHL Institutional Council. The meeting brought together leaders from most of the BHL partners at the time. At left is the 2nd BHL, designed by staff at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The current logo was introduced on 1 September 2011.

BHL Institutional Council, March 2011

Washington, DC

In my role as BHL Deputy Program Director, I regularly made presentations at the BHL governance meeting. 2011 was important for BHL planning. The "Life and Literature" conference, to be held later in the fall, was being planned. Also, with the initial funding from the MacArthur Foundation running out, plans for what would come next for BHL structure and governance were a major topic (Hibernation, Status Quo, Development and Future Growth). 

• Kalfatovic, M. (2011, March 8). Taking Measure of the Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2003 - 2010. 2011 BHL Institutional Council Meeting, Washington, DC. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18819012

In this presentation, I played on the unofficial tag line, "Extensive.Open.Global" to outline a variety of metrics of success. The tagline was also featured in a video I made the previous September:

Some photos from the meeting:

Presentation: The Biodiversity Heritage Library (6 March 2013)

On 6 March 2013, I gave a presentation to the Advisory Board of Smithsonian Libraries on the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Keeping the Advisory Board informed and engaged was an important part of my role as BHL Program Director.

• Kalfatovic, M. (2013, March 6). The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Smithsonian Libraries Board Orientation, Washington, DC. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18818926

Publication: "Data Born in Literature: The Biodiversity Heritage Library – A Global Digital Library Serving the Planet" (2025)

Last year, Digital Libraries Across Continents, Edited by Le Yang and Alicia Salaz was published by the Taylor & Francis Group. Included in the collection was my chapter,  "Data Born in Literature: The Biodiversity Heritage Library – A Global Digital Library Serving the Planet." 

The chapter gives an overview of the origin and growth of The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and the vision for the BHL to move from a traditional "digital library" to a 21st century repository of all heritage biodiversity literature recast and refactored as actionable data. 

The 2019 BHL Annual Meeting (Ithaca, NY) was where the idea that BHL is more than just "books" and exists as data first came about. It's hinted at in my presentation as Program Director, "Seeing a Butterfly & Knowing What It Is: BHL: Past > Present > Future" and was fleshed out in the coming years. I'll cover that in more detail in future posts.

• Citation: Kalfatovic, Martin R., "Data Born in Literature: The Biodiversity Heritage Library – A Global Digital Library Serving the Planet," in Yang, L., & Salaz, A. (Eds.). (2025). Digital Libraries Across Continents (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003473589.

More about Digital Libraries Across Continents:

Digital Libraries Across Continents illustrates how digital librarianship practitioners and scholars digitize, exhibit, and preserve their cultural heritage, and how these practices may be influenced by the policy, economic, and sociocultural environments in which they are developed.

Including scholarly articles, case studies, examples of best practice, and conceptual essays solicited from different continents, this book provides an overview of the status quo of digital libraries around the globe. The case studies examine how macro-level policy, funding, and social priorities influence the development of digital libraries. The volume offers a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between libraries in different countries and the ways in which they view, foster, develop, and sustain digital librarianship. Chapters within the book examine systems, standards, workflows, content, protocol, social and policy environments, culture, metadata, and more, through a series of case studies provided by practitioners working in these settings. Taking a comparative international approach, the book promotes the development of inclusive, accessible, and sustainable digital libraries that serve a global human knowledge endeavor.

Digital Libraries Across Continents provides a wide-ranging examination of issues in cross-border digital library contexts. It will be essential reading for library practitioners, as well as information scientists and educators.

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)