Biodiversity Heritage Library:

A Mass Scanning Mix of Metadata

Bianca Crowley, Collections CoordinatorBiodiversity Heritage LibrarySmithsonian Libraries Apr 13, 2023

BHL Overview

• http://biodiversitylibrary.org• New user interface launched in March• Search by title, author, article, subjects and

scientific names• Various download options, even high

resolution• Taxonomic name finding algorithm• Machine-to-machine services

Core BHL Member Institutions

Smithsonian Libraries: 6,800+ titles Nearly 18,000 volumes 7 million+ pages

Digitization Workflow

Metadata

1. Titles vs. Items vs. Segments

2. Metadata we need: • MARC for book and journal titles • Volume information • Page data

BHL Term Library Term Meaning Metadata

Title Book or Journal Titles

Conceptual Unit MARC record

Item Volume, Piece Object Derived from holdings + created @ digitization

Segment Article, Book Chapter, Part

Section of consecutive pgs

Harvested from BioStor.org or created post digitization

Smithsonian Libraries Record

BHLRecord

Metadata Challenges

• BHL collection aggregates metadata from 15 member library catalogs

• Also aggregating metadata from a couple hundred Internet Archive contributors

• Default page metadata created at time of scanning lacks detail esp. for plates, figures, etc.

• Taxonomic name finding algorithm only as good as optical character recognition (OCR)

BHL ADMINISTRATIVE DASHBOARD ALLOWS ACCESS TO BACKEND DATABASE

User Feedback is Critical

General feedback form Scan request form

http://biodiversitylibrary.org/contact

Gemini Issue Tracking System

©opyright MetadataCopyright Status Status language License

Permissions (1923 in-copyright pubs)

In copyright. Digitized with the permission of the rights holder.

Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA)

Due Diligence (1923-77 US pubs)

No known copyright restrictions as determined by scanning institution.

NA

Public Domain (pre-1923)

Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.

NA

• We also have an open data policy – metadata 100% available for reuse under a CC0 license (public domain)

Impact• “BHL came to the rescue when a planned trip to work in the Mertz Library at The New

York Botanical Garden had to be cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. Thanks to the online resources available through BHL I was able to source most of the key works I needed, with their supporting bibliographic information. Further use of BHL occurred when building work at the Linnean Society of London limited access to some of the book I had been able to use from that collection."

• “I would like thank you all very much for invaluable work and support you do. I just got a pdf-file from more than century old (1893) journal paper (regional naturalist society paper, published in Finland), to get copy I should take 500 mile drive to our university library. Now I am got it fastly in high-quality pdf-copy. Cordial thanks and all success in continuing your highly valuable mission.” [conservation biologist from Estonia]

• “You are a wonderful resource. I maintain a Website that describes the plant genus Opuntia (prickly pear cacti). There is no way I could maintain such a site without access to literature from 100-200 years ago. Most of the cactus species were discovered long ago; I find it invaluable to put up PDF files to document each species in the literature as I document them photographically. I am a botanist, but I work in the pharmaceutical field (not so many botanical jobs out there). Your library makes it possible for me to continue working with plants in a meaningful and scientific manner.”

Impact

• Repackaging content in new ways for new audiences via:– flickr, Facebook, Twitter, & Pinterest– iTunes U & iBooks

• Open data & APIs – Put content where users are already working

(Encyclopedia of Life-EOL.org, Int’l Plant Names Index-IPNI.org, Tropicos.org)

– Gets power users to work for us (for free!) e.g. BioStor.org, synynyms.com

Questions?

Bianca Crowleycrowleyb@si.edu

Thank you

http://biodiversitylibrary.org