The BHL combines technology, libraries and science by providing a platform for global content contributors and members, redundant repositories, and tools for retrieving the data (literature, scientific names, field notes) along with a robust social media program. The BHL offers an opportunity for data extraction from the more than 45 million pages of digitized biodiversity literature.  As BHL gains prominence, more current material is added to the extensive legacy content.  Cooperation with organizations such as Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) enables BHL content to be served to users who need the literature. An open access provider, BHL encourages responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.” Other platforms such as the Digital Public Library of America and Europeana expose the biodiversity literature to the broadest possible audience.

Over the past 9 years, BHL has demonstrated that a global, collaborative alliance of libraries, archives and museums can mobilize to digitize and provide content through a single open access portal. BHL has multiple approaches to content selection including discipline-specific selection, user requests, scholarly bibliographies, permissions granted by rights-holders and ingestion of appropriate content found in the Internet Archive.

In this talk, I will describe the network of existing global partnerships, focusing on why it is important to develop global relationships and how each global entity contributes to the BHL.  The BHL focus on user needs, resource sharing, organization, and technology contributes to the success and sustainability of the BHL.