Becca Greenstein, STEM Librarian at Northwestern University Libraries.

A BHL User Story by Becca Greenstein

During the summer of 2016, I had the privilege of working on a collection development project for the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) for a Professional Development Internship with Jacqueline Chapman at Smithsonian Libraries. My task was to refine a collection assessment methodology for BHL using both taxonomic and bibliographic analyses. BHL’s unique features made certain aspects of my project significantly easier to conduct: taxonomic name recognition which pulls scientific names from each page of text, data exports which contain all of the scientific names in the BHL corpus, and searching by scientific name to see if BHL has the initial mentions of various species [1].

Fast forward to November 2017, when I had been working at the Northwestern University Libraries as a STEM Librarian for four months. I attended a Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) webinar about BHL, presented by Grace Costantino and Bianca Crowley, in order to reacquaint myself with BHL (and have the excuse to search their Flickr collection for a good image so I could tweet about the webinar later). Afterwards, I was telling my colleagues about the webinar, and a number expressed interest in learning more about BHL. In addition to being a valuable resource for library staff, we thought a one-shot library class on BHL would be a good opportunity for outreach to various academic departments. To promote the class, I designed a poster, wrote a post on our Libraries’ blog, and made plenty of announcements to get the word out to interested library staff and departments.

Poster promoting Becca Greenstein’s BHL class at Northwestern University Libraries. Poster by Becca Greenstein and Clare Roccaforte (Director of Marketing and Communication, Northwestern University Libraries).

During the class, I used the content from the FDLP webinar to talk about BHL’s history, collections, users, social media presence, citizen science projects, and grant-funded projects. I also did a demonstration of the BHL website, conducted a number of searches, and highlighted the features that had helped me during my internship. Participation numbers were lower than I’d hoped, but attendees did ask a lot of good questions. They were relieved to know that one can export BHL item records into EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley, the three reference management tools we support at the Libraries. They asked how it was used by researchers, and I described the natural history and botany research conducted by subject specialists worldwide on organisms ranging from mosses to turtles to fungi. I also mentioned Vargapupa biheli, the snail species named in honor of BHL, which they were very interested to hear about. They also loved the cards that feature illustrations from the BHL collection, the BHL link, and social media information (images can be found here).

Looking forward, I’ll be presenting a webinar on BHL for the Illinois chapter of the Special Libraries Association in May. Our Life Sciences Librarian told me that researchers in Northwestern’s Plant Biology and Conservation program would also be interested in learning about BHL. Lastly, I’ll hopefully do a presentation about BHL at our orientation for new graduate students next fall. I’d like to continue to spread the word about this collection that has revolutionized natural history and botany research.

Join us for Seeds in the Stacks, a Facebook Live tour at the USDA National Agricultural Library! We’ll go behind-the-scenes to explore selections from the Library’s collection of over 200,000 seed and nursery catalogs.

The USDA National Agricultural Library is the newest BHL Member. Since joining the consortium as an Affiliate in 2014, NAL has contributed over 2 million pages to the BHL collection, including a significant portion of its Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection. To date, NAL has contributed over 33,000 catalogs from this collection to BHL. The catalogs can be viewed in BHL as part of the Seed & Nursery Catalogs collection.

BHL participated in BioBlitz 2016 in Washington, D.C. on 20-21 May. A BioBlitz focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. In this special edition of the BioBlitz, held in conjunction with the National Park Service’s centenary, the D.C. BioBlitz was accompanied by a two-day Biodiversity Festival on the National Mall at Constitution Gardens. The event was co-hosted by the National Park Service and National Geographic.

Visitors at the BHL booth at the BioBlitz 2016 Biodiversity Festival on 20 May. Image Credit: Gil Taylor.

BHL and Smithsonian Libraries’ staff hosted a booth at the Festival that featured hands-on activities including coloring projects, online exhibitions, and a plant ID challenge that demonstrated how BHL can help visitors identify nature around them. Booth volunteers interacted with over 320 people during the course of the 2-day event and had a unique opportunity to expose young people (K-12) to the rich variety of free resources that BHL has to offer.

BHL cards, coloring pages, and plant ID challenge at the BioBlitz 2016 Biodiversity Festival booth. Image Credits: Grace Costantino.

BHL staff at the booth included Martin R. Kalfatovic (BHL Program Director) and Grace Costantino (BHL Outreach and Communication Manager). Smithsonian Libraries staff at the booth included Sara Cardello (Education Specialist), Polly Lasker (Librarian), Gil Taylor (Supervisory Librarian), Bonnie White (Library Technician), Krista Aniel (Management Support Specialist), Barbara Ferry (Department Head, Natural and Physical Sciences Library), Hollis Gentry (Geology Specialist), and Michael O’Connor (Cataloger).

Booth Volunteers, from Left to Right: Polly Lasker, Sara Cardello, Gil Taylor, Krista Aniel, Bonnie White. Image Credits: Grace Costantino.

Booth Volunteers, from Left to Right: Barbara Ferry, Hollis Gentry, Martin Kalfatovic, Grace Costantino, Michael O’Connor. Image Credits: Grace Costantino.

Each booth was instructed to have a hands-on activity that participants could complete as part of the Festival’s Biodiversity University. By completing five activities at the Festival, visitors received their Biodiversity University Bachelor’s degree. Ten activities earned them a Master’s and twenty activities a doctorate. BHL’s activity was a plant ID challenge in which visitors used a book in BHL (A Guide to the Trees by Alice Lounsberry) to identify leaves from five trees native to the D.C. region. Over 200 students completed the activity, earning a sticker towards their Biodiversity University diploma!

Sara Cardello guiding visitors through the plant ID challenge at the BHL booth. Image Credit: Grace Costantino.

Additional BHL booth activities included coloring pages from BHL’s Color Our Collections coloring book and a chance to explore BHL’s online exhibitions (particularly Early Women in Science) and citizen science opportunities (including Flickr image tagging, field note transcription, Science Gossip, and online games).

Visitor coloring a BHL coloring page at the BHL booth. Image Credit: Grace Costantino.

The BioBlitz in D.C. was the cornerstone event of over 250 BioBlitzes happening around the country this year. So far this year, over 61,000 observations of over 6,800 species in 126 parks around the U.S. have been made. The largest percentage of observations were made of plants, followed by birds, insects, fungi, reptiles, mammals, mollusks, arachnids, and amphibians. Learn more about the observations made to date.

Grace Costantino guiding visitors through the plant ID challenge at the BHL booth. Image Credit: Barbara Ferry.

We were thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in the BioBlitz and show visitors how BHL’s free resources can be a valuable tool to help them identify and learn more about biodiversity. We’d also like to extend a special thanks to all of the Smithsonian Libraries staff that volunteered at the booth. The BioBlitz and Biodiversity Festival were an excellent opportunity for us to inspire discovery through free access to biodiversity knowledge.

Gil Taylor (left) guiding visitors through the plant ID challenge at the BHL booth. Image Credit: Grace Costantino.

Malayan Flying Fox at the Organization for Bat Conservation #SavetheBats booth at the BioBlitz 2016 Biodiversity Festival. Image Credit: Grace Costantino.

Our neighbors at the BioBlitz 2016 Biodiversity Festival booth. Image Credit: Grace Costantino.

In 2014, BHL welcomed the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a member. The University’s Library is a campus-wide network of libraries serving programs of learning and research in many disciplines and is the largest public university research library in the country with more than 13 million volumes. The Biology Library collection alone contains over 137,000 volumes.

To date, the University Library has contributed over 1.2 million pages from over 4,400 volumes to BHL. Illustrations from many of these books have also been made available in the BHL Flickr. Explore the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Collection in BHL and Flickr.

“Celebrating the Biodiversity Heritage Library: Supporting Scientists Worldwide” exhibit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Main Library Marshall Gallery. Image Credit: Kelli Trei.

On September 1, 2015, the University Library unveiled an exhibit about BHL at the Main Library Marshall Gallery entitled: “Celebrating the Biodiversity Heritage Library: Supporting Scientists Worldwide.” This free exhibit highlights contributed materials from the University as well as the BHL collection itself and draws attention to Library digitization efforts and historic scientific materials on campus. The exhibit runs through September 30, 2015. Learn more.

“Celebrating the Biodiversity Heritage Library: Supporting Scientists Worldwide” exhibit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Main Library Marshall Gallery. Image Credit: Kelli Trei.

Be sure to check out the exhibit if you’re visiting or live near the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and explore the University Library’s collection on BHL!