Refining BHL: New Vision, Mission, and Goal Statements

We are pleased to announce that the BHL Steering Committee has approved new vision, mission, and goal statements for the Biodiversity Heritage Library!

Vision:

Inspiring discovery through free access to biodiversity knowledge.

Mission:

The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.

Goals:

Goal 1: Relevant Content 

Build and maintain the BHL as the largest reliable, reputable, and responsive repository of biodiversity literature and archival materials. 

Goal 2: Tools and Services 

Develop services and tools which facilitate discovery and improve research efficiency of BHL content. 

Goal 3: User Engagement 

Increase global awareness about the BHL through outreach, learning and education, and branding through engagement and collaboration with existing and new user communities. 

Goal 4: Membership and Partnerships 

Grow BHL consortia membership and partnerships while fostering cross-institutional collaboration that continues to serve as a model for digital library development. 

Goal 5: Financial Sustainability 

Ensure sustainability and relevance by being flexible, adaptable, and financially sound while the content and services remain openly and freely available.

Work on revising BHL’s vision, mission, and goals began at the September 2012 BHL Staff and Technical Meeting. During the meeting, BHL staff dedicated several hours to pinpointing exactly what the BHL project is about and translating that into elements for a BHL vision statement. Staff also dissected BHL’s existing goals, paring them down to simple statements outlining the most important objectives of the project.

Following the meeting, two staff subcommittees worked to take the resulting suggestions and mold those into draft vision and goal statements for BHL. The BHL Secretariat, including the BHL Program Director, Program Manager, and Collections Coordinator, then took all of the recommendations provided by staff and produced final draft vision, mission, and goal statements.

These statements were presented at the 2013 BHL Institutional Council Meeting, May 6-7, in Woods Hole, MA, where the BHL Steering Committee applied final revisions to the statements before approving them as BHL’s new official vision, mission, and goals!

You can now see BHL’s vision and mission on the homepage of our website, and our goals are clearly articulated on the BHL About page. We hope you find them as inspiring as we do!