Librarian Travels: Global Biodiversity Heritage Library in Australia, part 3

The final day of my trip to Melbourne was a trip to  the 17th Biennial Conference and Exhibition for the Australian Libraries, Technology and the Future organization, VALA.  The Biodiversity Heritage Library presented a panel discussion "Scanning Locally, Collaborating Globally: Creating a Global Biodiversity Heritage Library".  The panel was well received by the 48 attendees.  Karen Kealy from the University of Melbourne introduced the panel:  Nancy Gwinn from Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Martin Kalfatovic from BHL and the Smithsonian Institution, Connie Rinaldo from the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Elycia Wallis from the Museum Victoria, Victoria, Australia, Anne-Lise Fourie from South African National Biodiversity Institute and BHL Africa and Jiri Frank from the National Museum, Prague and BHL Europe. Gwinn provided an overview of BHL and how it is governed.  Kalfatovic provided an overview of BHL.

Rinaldo talked about the current grant projects that are adding value to BHL such as Connecting Content:  a collaboration to link field notes to specimens and published literature, Purposeful gaming, to crowdsource the correction of transcriptions for handwritten or complex text in BHL, The Art of Life, designed to release millions of images from BHL by making them findable, and the latest grant which will develop ways to mine BHL data and make it accessible in new ways.  Rinaldo also reviewed BHL's social marketing presence.                                                       

-Connie