Smithsonian Libraries

New Smithsonian Publications added to BHL

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Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Libraries

As part of its participation in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries has recently digitized most of the series Bulletin of the United States National Museum (1875-1971) and the Proceedings of the United States National Museum (1878-1968). Both titles are museum-oriented publications that document important research at the Smithsonian, including reports on expeditions, catalogs of the collections and descriptions of new species.

The volumes come from SIL’s Smithsoniana collection, housed in the Museum Studies and Reference Library, and were scanned at the FedScan scanning center at the Library of Congress. Although the goal is to digitize both series in their entirety, you may notice a few missing issues. The scanning process was often complicated by the publications’ unexpected features like fold out maps. Check back as SIL solves these digitization conundrums and adds new volumes!

Click here to view the available Bulletins.
Click here to view the available Proceedings.

-ECR

Smithsonian Librarian Named Director of Biodiversity Heritage Library

Tom Garnett, associate director for Digital Library and Information Systems for the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, has been named the first Program Director of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. He has coordinated the Biodiversity Heritage Library initiative since its inception in 2004. He begins his new position March 31. Garnett has more than 27 years of experience in the library field creating, scoping, implementing, and managing major digital library projects. For the past 23 years, he has worked in the Smithsonian Libraries, where he served as Systems Administrator in the Systems Office, before being promoted to Assistant Director and then Associate director for Digital Library and Information Systems.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a consortium of 10 natural history, botanical, and research institute libraries that collectively hold a substantial amount of the world’s published knowledge on biological diversity. It was organized to digitize the legacy literature of biodiversity and make it available as part of a biodiversity commons. Scientists and students from around the world will be able to search and read biodiversity texts from the collections of these libraries and link them to relevant taxonomic, geographic or other useful databases. The project will make information more accessible worldwide and reduce the need for expensive, labor-intensive library research.

-Catherine Fraser

Presentation for the Boston Library Consortium

   
  Originally uploaded by matt707

I, along with my colleague Chris Freeland of the Missouri Botanical Garden, was invited by the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) to make presentations on how the Biodiversity Heritage Library has created a portal to biodiversity literature from our diverse collections.

Attending the presentation were over 50 staff from BLC institutions (MIT, UMass-Amherst, Brandeis, MBL/WHOI, Boston Public Library, etc.), including Boston Public Library president Bernard Margolis.

We had an enthusiastic group that asked a number of great questions.

- Martin Kalfatovic

My presentation is available online at SlideShare

Global Library of Life: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Boston Library Consortium Meeting. Boston Public Library. 18 March 2008. Boston, MA.

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Biodiversity Heritage Library Scanning

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  Originally uploaded by martin_kalfatovic

On March 18, I visited the Northeast Regional Scanning Center at Boston Public Library. The Northeast Regional Scanning Center is currently scanning books from Harvard (Museum of Comparative Zoology and Botany Libraries) and the Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Library for the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL).

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries is a key player in the BHL and currently hosts a single scanning station in the National Museum of Natural History and is actively working with the Library of Congress on establishing the 10 station "FedScan" center at the LC's Adams Building.

Visit the BHL portal at: www.biodiversitylibrary.org and follow the latest developments on the BHL blog at biodiversitylibrary.blogspot.com.

- Martin Kalfatovic