Alvin Hutchinson and I attended the annual meeting of BioOne on April 23, 2010 here in
Washington, DC. BioOne is a global, not-for-profit collaboration bringing together
scientific societies, publishers, and libraries to provide access to critical, peer-
reviewed research in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. BioOne is also an important partner with the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
David Remsen (Secretariat, Global Biodiversity Information Facility [GBIF]) spoke about
the nature of taxonomic publishing as it pertains to the naming of organisms. Remsen,
formerly of the Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
library, was one of the minds behind the formation of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
(BHL). As one of the key creators of the taxonomic intelligence tools that underlay BHL,
he has been an important contributor to the success of BHL. He spoke about the
importance of taxonomic name finding, and related problems.
Amy Brand (Assistant Provost for Faculty Appointments, Harvard University) gave an
overview of Harvard's Office of Scholarly Communications which manages the university's
open access program and digital repository. She also discussed the ongoing restructuring
of Harvard's many libraries and uncovering new roles for libraries and librarians as the
landscape of information sciences changes. The Harvard repository (DASH) was launched in beta mode in September 2009 and sits, as does the
Smithsonian Libraries' repository, on the D-Space platform. DASH has about 3,000
articles online (49% sciences, 39% social sciences, and 10% arts and sciences). Harvard
has three full-time staff, a program director, and over 50 student staff working in the
office that oversees the repository. Harvard is also one of the key supporters of the
institutional support for the pay-to-publish model which will allow for increased open
access to scholarly output. One of the key roles that Brand sees for libraries and
librarians in the near future is an increased role in working with their research
community to serve in the role of data curators, facilitate the care of research output
(in terms of scholarly output bibliographies) and similar activities. Making the role of
the library in the creation of documentation for promotion and tenure will put the role
of the library more front and center in the academy.
The afternoon session concluded with a publisher panel and open discussion.
Participating in that were Lorna Depew (Journal of East African Natural History), Lori
Kelman (BIOS), and Kearon McNicol (Head of Library and Information Services, Freshwater
Biological Association).
Find more information about the meeting at the BioOne site.
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