A Vast Library of Life: The Biodiversity Heritage Library as a window to the living world. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Mae Jemison Science Reading Room. Pretoria, South Africa. 11 June 2012.

2. A Vast Library of Life:
The Biodiversity
Heritage Library as a
window to the living
world
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Smithsonian Libraries | Washington, DC
Mae Jemison Science Reading Room
Pretoria, South Africa | 11 June 2012

16. Lion
Lion
Walrus
Armadillo
Giraffe

17. Lion
Lion = Panthera leo
Walrus = Odobenus rosmarus
Armadillo = Dasypus novemcinctus
Giraffe = Giraffa camelopardalis

18. Where do these names come from?

20. Biodiversity Heritage Library
Vishwas Chavan travels a lot. An
informatician based at the National
Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India, he
collects data on what types of animal live
where in India to enter into a biodiversity
database … Much of the information
Chavan seeks is in old, out-of-print
tomes … To find them, Chavan has
spent years trailing around libraries. He
dreams of the day when books such as
these are scanned and made available
as digital files on the Internet.
“Science in the Web Age: The Real
Death of Print”
by Andreas von Bubnoff
Nature 438, 550-552 1 December 2005

24. BHL US Partners

25. Scanning a Books

26. Biodiversity Heritage Library : 2006

29. > 390,000 views in 10
months
> 30,000+ images

30. Demonstration of
BHL Flickr Collection

34. BHL Africa
Thanks to the generosity of the
JRS Foundation, an initial
meeting with potential African
BHL participants was held in
Chicago (Nov 2011).
In June 2012, again with the
support of the JRS Foundation,
the first BHL African
Organizational meeting will be
held in Cape Town in
conjunction with the SANBI
BIMF 2012 meeting.
Over 25 participants from sub-
Saharan Africa will join BHL
members to discuss the
parameters of a BHL Africa.

38. Thank you