DISCOVERING AFRICAN BIODIVERSITY LITERATURE COLLECTIONS Anne-Lise Fourie (SANBI, South Africa), Lucy Waruingi (African Conservation Centre, Kenya) Presented at TDWG 2013 Conference Florence, ITALY
FIELD MUSEUM, CHICAGO NOVEMBER 2011 • 9 Invitees • BHL Life & Literature Conference • 1 day workshop • Concept of BHL Africa
KIRSTENBOSCH, CAPE TOWN JUNE 2012 • BIM forum • 2 day workshop • Established BHLA • Tasked to plan launch
PRETORIA APRIL 15-17, 2013 BHL AFRICA Launched!
VISION • To create a global access point and make available the legacy of African Biodiversity Heritage Information
MISSION • To establish a consortium of institutes • To make that information available for open access and responsible use • To include digitally created material in public domain • To include as many as possible images
KEY VALUES OF BHLA • Open access • Collaboration • Interoperability • Transparency
Regions of BHLA • Northern Africa • Western Africa • Central Africa • Eastern Africa • Southern Africa
ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE • Up to date we have 34 signed MoU’s . • Training workshop planned to coincide with TWDG in Kenya, 2014 • Drafting a preliminary communication and outreach plan • University of Pretoria will be receiving 3 machines from Internet Archives • Macaw tool developed by Joel Richard at the Smithsonian Libraries, which is used to ingest books through Internet Archive into BHL. A remote installation of Macaw is running at the University of Pretoria and can be access via the web by any BHL-Africa participant
CHALLENGES • Identifying institutes not represented in BHLA • Identifying unique collections • Training and developing digitization as a core skill • Identifying resource sharing possibilities • Developing technical tools specifically for Africa • Educating users of BHLA • Funding
WAY FORWARD • Identify and engage with relevant institutes • Create awareness of BHLA • Support to and improve access to collections • Identify collaborations and share of expertise • Identify training and technical needs
BHLA Steering Committee • Anne-Lise Fourie, SA (SANBI, Southern) and Chair • Ria Groenewald, SA (University of Pretoria); • Ashah Owano , Kenya (National Museums of Kenya); • Loi Namugenyi , Uganda (Uganda National Council for Science and Technology) • Lawrence Monda, Kenya (NMK)- BHL Africa Technical Representative. We still hope to find representatives for North/Central Africa for the Steering Commitee
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