The Biodversity Heritage Library honored for collaboration and community-building

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Biodiversity Heritage Library Program Director Martin R. Kalfatovic accepts the Community/Capacity Award on behalf of the BHL consortium at the 2016 Digital Library Federation Awards Forum in Milwaukee, Wisc., Nov. 7, 2016. (Photo: @tlroup: https://twitter.com/tltroup/status/795649348721897474.)

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has been selected as an inaugural recipient of the Digital Library Federation Community/Capacity Award. The award honors cross-institutional collaboration and constructive, community-minded capacity building in digital libraries, archives, and museums.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library, headquartered at the Smithsonian Libraries, collaborates to build and maximize capacity across its international consortium of over 30 institutions in order to provide free and open online access to library collections from around the world. BHL helps make biodiversity literature, including materials of physically avaialble in limited locations, openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community. BHL also serves as the foundational literature component of the Encyclopedia of Life. 

The DLF Community/Capacity Award celebrates BHL’s commitment to collaboration, openness, and community spirit, which has transformed the way researchers across the globe access biodiversity information. As former Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough stated in Best of Both Worlds, BHL is “an impressive example of what can be accomplished by digitization of library resources through a collaborative approach.”

BHL and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, a co-recipient of the award, were recognized during an award ceremony at the DLF Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 7. Joining BHL Program Director Martin R. Kalfatovic on stage to accept the award from DLF Director Bethany Nowviskie were BHL Member representative Kelli Trei (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), and Jacqueline Chapman and Joel Richard from Smithsonian Libraries. Additional BHL representatives in attendance at the ceremony included Anne Kenney (University Librarian, Cornell University Library), Keri Thompson (Smithsonian Libraries), and Karl Blumenthal (Internet Archive).

Biodiversity Heritage Library Program Director Martin R. Kalfatovic accepts the Community/Capacity Award on behalf of the BHL consortium at the 2016 DLF Forum in Milwaukee, Wisc., Nov. 7, 2016. (Photo courtesy Biodiversity Heritage Libraries)

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