All posts by Martin R. Kalfatovic

On behalf of the Biodiversity Heritage Library community, the BHL Executive Committee, chaired by Constance Rinaldo (Ernst Mayr Library, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University) and the BHL Secretariat, led by Martin Kalfatovic (Smithsonian Libraries),  offer our condolences for the irreparable losses sustained by the National Museum of Brazil (Museu Nacional) in the tragic fire of 2 September 2018.

BHL staff are currently in communication with our colleagues at BHL SciELO in São Paulo to expedite processing of additional volumes of Archivos do Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro for the BHL. We are also exploring additional ways that the BHL’s extensive collection of biodiversity literature can support the work of researchers and scholars of the National Museum.

Em solidariedade ao Museu Nacional do Brasil.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library

BHL Program Director Martin Kalfatovic was invited to participate in a symposium, hosted by JSTOR Global Plants, at Botany 2018 in Rochester, MN entitled The Future of Digital Projects for Research & Teaching in Botany.

The symposium addressed questions such as: what existing digital projects in botany have been successful and how did they become so; what areas of need should future projects explore; how do we define success for digital projects; how do digital projects directed at students differ from those aimed at the researcher; how can we use digital projects to reach new students and interested lay people; and how are new digital projects funded and supported for the long term.

The 2018 BHL Annual Meeting was held in Los Angeles at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. The meeting was attended by 35 representatives of BHL partners from 11 countries.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library is an institutional member of TDWG. TDWG was formed to: “establish international collaboration among biological database projects. TDWG promoted the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the World’s heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large. Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) now focuses on the development of standards for the exchange of biological/biodiversity data.”

BHL Chair Constance Rinaldo and BHL Program Director Martin Kalfatovic each took advantage of the opportunities provided by our Finnish hosts of GBIF 24 for excursions to explore Finnish biodiversity. Rinaldo explored Nuuksio National Park and Kalfatovic, Vallisaari and Suomenlinna.

The 24th meeting of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Governing Board and associated events were held in Helsinki, Finland, 24-29 September. The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) was represented at both the 14th GBIF Nodes Meeting (24-25 September 2017, by BHL Program Director, Martin R. Kalfatovic) and the Governing Board Meeting (26-27 September 2017, by BHL Chair, Constance Rinaldo).

Along with BHL Program Manager Carolyn Sheffield, I represented BHL as a delegate to the XIX International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen, China. Held during the week of 24-28 July 2017, the Congress (which is held every five years) drew over 6,000 botanists from around the world. The Congress provided an excellent opportunity to catch up with colleagues from around the world and learn about some of the latest botanical research.