All posts tagged with bhl-africa

Since it’s initial organization in 2012 and launch in 2013, BHL Africa has been hard at work developing a strategy, framework, and methodology for contributing the valuable biodiversity information held within the node’s participating institutions to BHL.

On April 15, 2013, during a ceremony hosted at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) at the Pretoria National Botanical Garden in Pretoria, South Africa, BHL-Africa officially launched as our sixth global node. Working within the BHL consortium, BHL-Africa aims to provide open access to the valuable information held in Africa’s biodiversity institutions.

  The 5th Global Biodiversity Heritage Library Meeting was held in Lorne, Australia, February 1-2, 2014.   Representatives from each of BHL’s global nodes, with the exception of BHL Egypt, convened to discuss the status of current goals, the formation of new goals, and to work together in forming the overall direction of BHL Global.  The meeting consisted of reports from the global nodes, the election of officers, and discussion of bylaws, technical issues and goals. The first day of the meeting consisted of presentations delivered by representatives from BHL Central and the Global Nodes. BHL Central Kicking off the presentations, Martin Kalfatovic, BHL Program Director, reported on BHL Central’s continued growth.

Dr. Geoffrey Mwachala, Director, Research and Collection at the National Museum of Kenya, stopped to visit Martin Kalfatovic and Nancy Gwinn while in Washington on other biodiversity and museum collections business at the Smithsonian. While at Smithsonian Libraries, he was able to visit the scanning facility in the National Museum of Natural History and see some of the BHL digitization operations in action. Dr. Mwachala is a strong supporter of BHL Africa and the expansion of biodiversity knowledge.

On April 15, 2013, BHL-Africa officially launched. BHL-Africa’s mission is to provide open access to the valuable biodiversity literature found within African libraries and institutions. The African consortium is hard at work identifying partners throughout the continent to sign an MOU and commit to working towards this noble objective.