The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) has welcomed a new member: the Library of Congress. The fifteenth partner of the BHL, the Library of Congress will contribute to the digitization of historical science literature in the collection. All material will be online, free and available to the public. Continue reading
The Biodiversity Heritage Library has released a new user interface. The new interface was informed by usability studies and is based on the design and functionality of the BHL-Australia portal. Continue reading
The International Data Group’s Computerworld Honors Program announced the Biodiversity Heritage Library as a 2013 Laureate on March 19. The annual award program honors visionary applications of information technology promoting positive social, economic and educational change. Continue reading
Dr. Nancy Gwinn and Martin Kalfatovic at Mae Jemison Reading Room.
On June 10-15, 2012, Dr. Nancy Gwinn (Smithsonian Libraries Director and Biodiversity Heritage Library Executive Committee Chair),Martin Kalfatovic (Assistant Director, Digital Services Division, Smithsonian Libraries and BHL Program Director), and Grace Costantino (BHL Program Manager), along with several other BHL colleagues from across the US, traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to attend a series of meetings aimed at creating a BHL for sub-Saharan Africa. Continue reading
In November, Keri Thompson and Martin Kalfatovic attended technical meetings related to the Biodiversity Heritage Library China node. Thompson and Kalfatovic accompanied BHL Technical Director, Chris Freeland (Missouri Botanical Garden) to the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing) for three days of meetings that covered scanning workflow, operation of the Internet Archive Scribe machine, technical standards for ingesting BHL-China materials into the BHL portal site, and replicating BHL data on IB/CAS servers.
BHL China program director Dr. Jinzhong Cui led the meetings. Also attending from BHL China were Fenghong Liu (project coordinator and Director of the Institute of Botany Library), Zheping Xu (technical director), and Shao Qing representing the Institute of Botany.
Additional presentations from the Institute of Botany staff included Chen Bin discussing the building the
Chinese Field Herbarium, Li Min, project director for the Plant Photo Bank of China (PPBC), and a detailed presentation on the data storage systems in place at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The group also received a tour of the Institute of Botany Library, source of materials for the initial BHL-China scanning project.
Additional photos from the meeting are available in the Plant Photo website.