Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a project for the digitization of literature on biodiversity. It was founded in 2005 and was initially formed by ten (since 2009, twelve) United States and British libraries.
After Gallica and AnimalBase, this is the third broad digitization project for biodiversity literature. In 2008 the importance of Gallica and AnimalBase was passed and the Biodiversity Heritage Library is by far the world's largest digitization project for biodiversity literature.[1]
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[edit] Composition
The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a collaboration of 14 natural history libraries. It is a cornerstone organization of the Encyclopedia of Life. The founding member libraries are:
- American Museum of Natural History (New York)
- Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago)
- Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
- Ernst Mayr Library (Museum of Comparative Zoology)
- Marine Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis)
- Natural History Museum (London)
- New York Botanical Garden
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Richmond, United Kingdom)
- Smithsonian Institution (Washington D.C.)
In May 2009, two new members were added to the consortium:
- Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia)
- California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco)
In 2011, two new members were added to the consortium:
- Cornell University Library (Ithaca, NY)
- United States Geological Survey (Reston, VA)
In May 2009 a European partner project BHL-Europe was founded by 28 consortium partners, mostly European libraries. Shortly thereafter another project BHL-China was launched in Beijing, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since then BHL in the strict sense has been called BHL-US/UK (usually only BHL-US), the global project has been referred to as BHL-Global, to distinguish it from the US/UK project. The global BHL project is managed primarily by the Smithsonian Institution (Washington D.C.), Natural History Museum (London), and Missouri Botanical Garden. Planned are six regional centers. Besides Europe and China, there are other projects in Brazil, Australia, and Egypt in the preparatory phase (early 2010).[citation needed]
There is an online BHL portal featuring Google Maps API integration, AJAX, tag clouds, and JPEG2000 images that facilitate multi-resolution zoom & pan.
[edit] Awards
The Biodiversity Heritage Library was awarded the 2010 John Thackray Medal of the Society for the History of Natural History. This award "recognizes significant achievements in the history or bibliography of natural history".[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Kasperek, Gerwin (2010). "Eine Übersicht von für die Biologie relevanten Projekten zur Digitalisierung historischer Fachliteratur. Darstellung eines speziellen Segmentes aus dem Internetquellen-Führer einer Virtuellen Fachbibliothek". Bibliotheksdienst 44: 448-460. ISSN 0006-1972. http://www.zlb.de/aktivitaeten/bd_neu/heftinhalte2010/DigitaleBibliothek030510_BD.pdf.
- ^ BHL Europe Newsletter #9
[edit] External links
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