Improving the interoperability of European biodiversity digital libraries Henning Scholz Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

Outline: Overview and introduction BHL Overview and introduction BHL-Europe Sustainability and long term accessebility BHL Permission Process

Charles Darwin et al The cultivation of natural science cannot be efficiently carried on without reference to an extensive library.

Analysis of Demand There is a growing need for biodiversity literature Recent analysis of demand indicates that users need an online repository of biodiversity literature (original text content) with a multilingual interface and sophisticated search and filtering functionality The lack of access to the published literature of biodiversity is one of the principal obstacles to efficient and productive research, outreach, and education (Taxonomic impediment to research) Most of the biodiversity literature is held in a few libraries making this literature unavailable for wider use by a broad range of potential users (scientists and non-scientists) The cited half-life of publications in taxonomy is longer than in any other scientific discipline (Revisions of taxonomy require seeing all prior literature) Repatriation of knowledge to the developing world

BHL History Library and Laboratory Conference in February 2005 demonstrated the growing need for digital biodiversity literature. Several libraries began meeting and planning for a grand digitizing plan. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was funded to integrate species level information and used BHL as the literature and scanning component. Though BHL has is composed of libraries it has been a domain-specific program, not just a digital library project. It arose from and is responsive to the biodiversity community, which the primary audience.

BHL Current Members Natural History Museum (London) Missouri Botanical Garden Smithsonian Institution Field Museum American Museum of Natural History New York Botanical Garden Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University Harvard Botany Library Marine Biological Laboratory / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Library (MBL/WHOI)

BHL Accomplishments 34,747 volumes, 13,945,917 pages online (June 16) OCR, page level access Indexed by traditional library access points (title, author etc.) as well as taxonomic name from a service Taxon Finder Cite in beta – a repository for communities of users to deposit vetted bibliographies of key taxonomic citations and associated metadata and digital (pdf) copies. 400,000 individual species pages from the Encyclopedia of Life link to pages in the BHL Portal Set of metadata for reuse by other project.

BHL Preservation Committed to long-term storage, curation, and preservation of digital text assets for the world-wide biodiversity community BHL is a steward for this literature, which is the common heritage of humanity. “Science has no borders.” To keep this content available and open for the future requires careful organizational planning. Preservation is both a technical and political/social process.

still to come...

Main principles: No digitisation  BHL-Europe is not funded to digitise Best Practice Network  no research and development project  building a solution with existing (state-of-the-art) technologies and bring it onto the market

Target users: Libraries Digitisation centres Digital library / Open Access networks Scientists (e.g. Biology) Scientists (e.g. History, Cultural heritage) Citizen scientists Students of different levels (primary to academic) School teachers Environmental & Conservation agencies / Government officials / Policy makers Artists European citizens

BHL-Europe Objectives 1: Provide a multilingual access point for the search and retrieval of biodiversity content through EUROPEANA and BHL Review and test approaches for the establishment and management of multilingual biodiversity digital libraries Improve the interoperability of European biodiversity digital libraries by the innovative application of proven technologies Promote the adoption of best practice methods, standards and specifications for the large-scale implementation of such repositories Facilitate the open access to taxonomic literature for a large number of target users including the general public

BHL-Europe Objectives 2: Raise awareness and ensure that the project outputs are known and used by the target users and that the approach directly addresses user needs Develop operational strategies and processes for long-term preservation and sustainability of the data produced by national biodiversity digitisation programmes Facilitate and enable the initiation of scanning initiatives in European countries not yet involved in digitisation programmes and improve the infrastructure for digital libraries in all EU countries Negotiate with Rights Holders to enable access to in-copyright content

Biodiversity Heritage Libraries in Europe: Natural History Museum, London, UK Narodni muzeum, Prague, CZ Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Stiftung Öffentlichen Rechts, DE Land Oberösterreich (Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen), AT Hungarian Natural History Museum, HU University of Copenhagen (Natural History Museum of Denmark), DK Stichting Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Naturalis, Leiden, NL National Botanic Garden of Belgium, BE Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, BE Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, BE Bibliothèque nationale de France, FR Museum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris, FR Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid, ES Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK Helsingin yliopisto, Helsinki, FI

Partners of BHL-Europe: Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, DE Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, AT Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, PL Università degli Studi di Firenze (Museo di Storia Naturale), Florence, IT Freie Universität Berlin (Botanic Garden & Museum), DE Missouri Botanical Garden, USA Smithsonian Institution, USA Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DE European Digital Library Foundation, NL Angewandte Informationstechnik Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, AT ATOS Origin Integration France, FR Species 2000, UK John Wiley & Sons limited, UK

Data Centre – “Darwin Repository” The “Greenest” data centre in Europe/World. Multiple integrated repositories reducing the cost or storage, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity significantly for users Storage and playout for major international Biodiversity projects – EOL & BHL A scanning centre for high quality, low cost, mass digitization. A “dark” library store for digitized library stock from partner institutions.

Data Centre – “Darwin Repository” Suitable location found with very good development potential in collaboration with Science Museum. Economy of scale provides additional avenues for co- development of services.  Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for all Museums (help with ongoing and running costs)  e-Infrastructure European initiative (Building Digital Repositories for Scientific Communities)

Proposed Data Centre Location Swindon Wroughton Science Museum ©2008 Google – Imagery ©2008 DigitalGlobe, Infoterra Ltd & Bluesky, GeoEye, Map data ©2008 Tele Atlas

Biodiversity Heritage Library Permission Process Working with non-profit publishers for sharing with the BHL To digitize and mount works under copyright BHL must obtain permission from the copyright holders. Many biodiversity journals and monographs are published by non-profit institutions or learned societies whose mission is to promote research and learning. Some of these institutions have not sold their rights to commercial publishers and are open to sharing with the BHL.

Current Permission Agreement: The agreement is non-exclusive. The copyright holder can use the content for other purposes. It does not involve any transfer of copyright to the BHL or its member institutions. It “grants to the current and future member Participating Institutions of the BHL a world-wide, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicenseable license to digitize and use the Titles (as identified above) in connection with the BHL, including the right to make reproductions in digital form, publicly display, and disseminate the Titles via the BHL and related websites, and create derivative works in digital form based on the Titles. The scope of this license is equivalent to an open source license, which permits others to use, reproduce, supplement, modify, create derivatives, and otherwise use the Titles, for any and all non-commercial purposes, with proper attribution to the Licensor as the source.”

Process: There is room for some modification of the wording of the draft permission document. When it is finalized, BHL Director sign for the BHL and the Editor-in-chief or Chairperson of the society signs. The process is usually very smooth. >60 titles to date, many published in the US, some of which are published in Europe and Asia. See: Numbers may grow significantly: negotiation with BioOne, commercial publishers,...

Wiley-Blackwell is a BHL signatory More than 100 journals of relevance for BHL Wiley already embarked on an ambitious digitization project  >500,000 pages from six projects directly relevant to BHL already live  Metadata can be provided to facilitate search through BHL Abstracts + full text + PDF, or abstracts + PDF Searchable to word and part-word level All digitized content held in one place with clear bibliographic structures: journals, online by title name, year, volume, issue, article

Six partners of Wiley and the archives created together BOU Complete archive back to 1791 More than 130,000 pp from 1826 on 12 publications in one place with clear historic structure young journals (1990 launch) contribute > 2,000 pp >100,000 pp since journals, over pp, back to 1857

Future Issues (for BHL-Europe): Do we need to modify the agreement for BHL-Europe? How will the process work? Centralized/distributed? How will we coordinate this work? How will this fit into a wider BHL IPR strategy? Who will digitise for Europe?  BHL included in bidding for digitisation  “Darwin Repository” as scanning centre for Europe  Local scanning: “Graellsia” and “Estudios Geológicos” (CSIC-MNCN) will be digitised and delivered to BHL (via BHL-Europe)

Dr. Henning Scholz Project Coordinator BHL-Europe & Malacologist Museum für Naturkunde Invalidenstraße 43 D Berlin Germany Tel.: Fax: BHL-