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Like many organizations around the world, the Biodiversity Heritage Library was compelled to move the 2020 BHL Annual Meeting to a virtual environment. In consultation with our prospective 2020 hosts, the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris, the BHL Executive Committee made the difficult, yet necessary, decision on 11 March 2020 to move to a virtual meeting rescheduled from April to May.

The 2020 BHL Virtual Annual Meeting was conducted over the course of May 2020. The Executive Committee and Secretariat staff provided pre-recorded video presentations which were made available to the BHL partner community in early May. Three video calls were hosted at various time zones in mid- to late-May to allow for the widest participation and the least inconvenience for partners. These three calls brought together 38 participants from 24 institutions and organizations, representing eight countries, and provided an opportunity for interaction and discussion even while separated by (in some cases great) distances.

We are pleased to welcome Colleen Funkhouser as the new BHL Program Manager. As Program Manager, Ms. Funkhouser will work to build strategic partnerships and to maintain and grow the infrastructure and services of BHL.

A digital librarian with a background in biology, Ms. Funkhouser has previously supported academic and federal libraries with a focus on scientific research. She comes to BHL from the National Science Foundation, where she served as a Digital Librarian for the past three years. She was first introduced to BHL as a Cataloging Intern for the Smithsonian Field Book Project in 2015.

BHL is pleased to announce that it has added its bibliographic records to OCLC’s WorldCat® database, “the world’s largest network of library content and services.” You can now find BHL e-books via https://www.worldcat.org/. With thousands of libraries worldwide participating in OCLC, contributing our records to this “global library cooperative” allows us to extend the discoverability and access of BHL e-books through its variety of tools and services.

BHL’s digital library provides free and open online access to over 250,000 volumes from the 15th-21st centuries on a wide range of biodiversity subjects. These collections offer great resources to support distance learning.

All of our content can be accessed online for free and in full through our digital library portal at biodiversitylibrary.org. No login, account, or membership is required. You can also freely download anything in our library in a variety of formats. Our FAQ provides information on how to search the library and download content.

In addition to our general collections, we’ve identified a selection of materials that may be of particular interest to educators and students. Explore these resources below.

On behalf of numerous partners and stakeholders, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) will convene a virtual workshop and international consultation in March and April 2020 with the aim of fleshing out a shared vision, road map and set of priorities for developing the scope, content and services included in a catalogue of the world’s natural history collections.

This workshop, Advancing the Catalogue of the World’s Natural History Collections, consists of two parts:

• A pair of two-hour preparatory webinars on 12-13 March 2020, in which participants will discuss this draft ideas paper;
• An open, facilitated online consultation that will run between 17-29 April 2020.

Visit the GBIF website to find more details, including times, dates and links to registration for both the March webinars and the April consultation.

This Wikipedia Editing Workshop has been postponed for a later date. Please stay tuned – we will update when a new date is determined.

As a public health precaution, the Smithsonian is postponing or canceling all public events through May 3. See http://si.edu/events for details. Museums and the National Zoo remain open at this time. Smithsonian is monitoring the guidance of the CDC and local public health officials.

The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) is launching a new initiative to reward early-career researchers, within the fields of taxonomy, biodiversity and geodiversity science, who base their research on natural science collections. E-SCORE – Excellence in Scientific Collections-based Research, is a celebration of the new generation of scientists who have shown dedication to the use of collections that help document, describe and understand life on earth, and the processes that have shaped it. The award also celebrates the United Nations endorsed International Day for Biological Diversity, which falls annually on the 22nd of May to commemorate the 1992 adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity. CETAF will award E-SCORE for the first time in 2020 to mark the end of the UN International Decade of Biodiversity.