iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Nicole Kearney

Biodiversity Data Journal @bdj.pensoft.net · 21/09/2026

📚 When the Biodiversity Heritage Library faced an uncertain future in 2025, the global community stepped up. Now, celebrating 20 years as an independent consortium, BHL is stronger than ever. 🎤 Thank you to Nicole Kearney for sharing this inspiring journey at #TDWG2026! (1/2)

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

It is an honour to be delivering a mini-keynote at #TDWG2026 tomorrow (2pm CEST) in this incredibly significant year for @biodivlibrary.bsky.social. BHL is on an uncertain and precarious journey. Last year, we were thrown into the wilderness, and we have had to find our own path out... @tdwg.org

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I’m delighted that @biodivlibrary.bsky.social will have a strong presence at #TDWG2026 in Oslo next week. I’ll be speaking in the mini-keynote session and hosting both our dedicated BHL symposium and (with @rdmpage.bsky.social) a hands-on BHL workshop. Hope to see you there! 🧪 📖 🌱 🌏 🔗 @tdwg.org

An historic illustration of a person walking across a living bridge made of fig tree roots

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

BHL needs reliable ongoing support. Will you help? 🌱

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

If we'd had the #TARDIS 🔑, @treiceratops.bsky.social & I would have gone back in time to secure/invest $$$ for BHL's future. Sadly we didn't, so we're still reliant on donations/grants to keep BHL going. 🧪 Donate now: ancrywkv.donorsupport.co/page/BHLat20 @biodivlibrary.bsky.social #DrWho #London

Two people leaning against a blue police box (the tardis) on a London Street

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

This #BiodiversityDay, BHL needs your help. Since transitioning from the Smithsonian, we are reliant on public donations to keep BHL's 64 million pages freely accessible and discoverable online. 🧪 🌱 🌏 Please consider a one-time or recurring donation: ancrywkv.donorsupport.co/page/BHLat20

ancrywkv.donorsupport.co

Support Biodiversity Knowledge Worldwide

This International Day for Biological Diversity, support open biodiversity knowledge for global impact. BHL connects the world with the literature that supports research, conservation, and discovery. ...

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Reposted by Nicole Kearney

Rod Page @rdmpage.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Exploring 218,567 pages of @bhl-au.bsky.social content using a "gilbert" curve. Just some of the content added by @nicolekearney.bsky.social and her team, HT to @cajunjoel.bsky.social for putting @biodivlibrary.bsky.social images on AWS which made this visualisation possible.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Day #2 in London: morning at the V&A, afternoon at the #ChelseaPhysicsGarden (London’s oldest botanic garden – 350 years this year!). Gradually gathered BHL folks (and #iNaturalist observations) throughout the day. Dinner at a gastro pub bursting with #LondonMarathon runners.

A picture of small boxes on shelves with handwritten labels

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Day #1 in London: making the most of the glorious spring weather to contribute to both the #CityNatureChallenge and our #BHLAnnualMeeting / #BHLDay2026 #iNaturalist project: www.inaturalist.org/projects/202... #RichmondPark 🦌🐿️🐞🦆🐝🦟🕸️🐌🪿

A red and black ladybird on a yellow and white flower

A white and brown striped snail on a green leaf

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

My favourite question to ask librarians and archivists is: "What is your favourite item in your collection?" This week I turned that question into an entire blog series. 🎈 What better way to celebrate BHL's 20th birthday? 🎊 Check it out: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/tag/bhlat20

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

BEST NEWS EVER: This spectacularly beautiful creature has not been extinct for 6,000 years; it’s been clinging on in the rainforest of remote West Papua. The world has more Striped Possums than we thought! www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A brown possum with a long black stripe down its back clinging to a tree branch.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

This is what has kept me up at night (and completely abuzz) over the past 10 months. And now I can sleep. 🐝

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Reposted by Nicole Kearney

Lera Miles @leramiles.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Hi - at UNEP-WCMC. Our own historical work was digitised onto the Biodiversity Heritage Library. We don't have a physical library any more.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

We're counting down the hours. Please help if you can. 🧪

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Day #5 in Tanzania: today I travelled from Zanzibar’s southern tip to its west, where I’ll be departing for Chumbe Island, an IUCN listed nature reserve & #GlobalBiodiversityHotspot known for its ecological innovation & exceptional coral reefs. Meanwhile, here are some dolphin pics from yesterday.

Turquoise waves breaking on a sandy beach. There are islands in the background.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Day #3 in Tanzania: Kizimkazi, a secluded beach on the southern coast of Zanzibar. #HomewardBound #iNaturalist

Four water birds standing in shallow water silhouetted against a sunset

A group of tiny sea anemones in shallow water

A coastal scene at low tide with deeper pools of seagrass and algae in the foreground.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Day #2 in Tanzania: The beautiful UNESCO & IUCN listed Jozani Forest (the only national park in Zanzibar): monkeys & elephant shrews #HomewardBound @inaturalist.bsky.social

The white, black and pink face of a baby Zanzibar Red Colobus monkey peeking through leaves.

A brown and rufous elephant shrew in vegetation

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Day #1 in Tanzania in the lead up to the 2025 #HomewardBound Leadership Summit. Zanzibar: ocean, islands, boats, Stone Town, markets, spices, cats & the first observations for our HB #iNaturalist project: www.inaturalist.org/projects/hom...

A coast scene, a walkway lined with palm trees and an ocean filled with boats. The sun is starting to set.

A market stall with bananas, avocados, pineapples and mangoes.

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Reposted by Nicole Kearney

Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has donated to BHL’s Fundraising Campaign so far! 💚 Your generosity will help us build an independent, sustainable future for open biodiversity knowledge. 🌿 📖 🌏 🧪 Every gift helps: 🔗 ancrywkv.donorsupport.co/page/BHLDona... #ILoveBHL #OpenAccess

ancrywkv.donorsupport.co

Donate to the Biodiversity Heritage Library

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open-access digital library of biodiversity literature and archives. BHL's future depends on the generosity of its global community. Your...

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

All ready for my 2am meeting with the BHL global consortium on this #Halloween Eve. We were instructed to dress for the holiday, so I’ll be sporting my glow-in-the-dark owl t-shirt & red-back spider earrings. #BHLib

An owl in a tree on a black background + green round earrings featuring a red back spider.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

📣 Calling all biodiversity institutions! Meise Botanic Garden is supporting the continuation of BHL by auditing/cancelling non-Open Access journal subscriptions & diverting all saved funds to BHL. Patricia Mergen encourages other institutions to do the same 🧪 🌱🌎 #LivingData2025 #OpenAccess #ILoveBHL

A person presenting on a stage in front of a slide featuring text and two pages of an historic publication.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Ben Scott @nhm-london.bsky.social shares how his team has extracted trait data from species descriptions on BHL. Result? 706,842 trait terms & the largest trait database in the world. BHL = the foundation of our understanding of biodiversity. #LivingData2025 @biodivlibrary.bsky.social

A person standing in front of a presentation slide, which features text and a photo of books, one open in front.

A person giving a presentation in front of a slide showing text and a map of dots.

A person giving a presentation in front of a slide showing text and an OpenAI prompt.

A person giving a presentation in front of a slide showing text and a table of purple lines.

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Trait data is crucial to our understand of biodiversity & informing how species respond to climate change. So much of this essential data is in BHL, captured in species descriptions in the literature. Says Ben Scott @nhm-london.bsky.social at #LivingData2025 @biodivlibrary.bsky.social #ILoveBHL 🌱🧪🌿

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

But, you can use birds as a vehicle to collect/identify “ugly” species. Rudolf Meier shares an example from Singapore, where 1500 lice were collected from 54 roadkill birds, resulting in the discovery of 50 new lice species. #LivingData2025 #EmbraceTheUgly

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

The solution to our biodiversity knowledge bias? Rudolf Meier shares @mfnberlin.bsky.social’s Biodiversity Knowledge Factory, which uses robotic specimen handling and imaging, and artificial intelligence for data extraction to describe “ugly” species at scale. 🪰 🪱 🪳 🦟 #LivingData2025

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Rudolf Meier paraphrases a post from @rdmpage.bsky.social : as ~ 2/3 of the records in GBIF are birds, @gbif.org is primarily a Global Bird Information Facility. To correct this bias, we need to focus on the “ugly” biodiversity. 🪰 🪱 🪳 🦟 @mfnberlin.bsky.social #LivingData2025 x.com/rdmpage/stat...

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Most scientists are not great at communicating their science, says Dean Pentcheff #LivingData2025. #ScienceCommunication is effective when we use narratives. Tell your story. Then you’ll get into people’s hearts. #JaneGoodall

A photo of Jane Goodall, alongside a quote

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Lauren Oakes shares how Adventure Scientists gathers data to address critical environmental challenges, such as amassing the largest and most diverse global microplastic pollution datasets & using #TreeTracking to prevent illegal logging. Find out more: www.adventurescientists.org #LivingData2025 🧪

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Rod Page @rdmpage.bsky.social shouts out the crucial work of BHL’s Persistent Identifier Working Group (Team #RetroPIDs), who’ve retrospectively assigned 50,000+ DOIs to historic journal articles, which have been cited 74,446 times, giving BHL an H-index of 79. #LivingData2025 @crossref.bsky.social

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Britt Andermann talks about the importance of archival materials (field notes, journals, registers, and excursion reports) as critical sources of biodiversity data, and shares a process for extracting this data and making it accessible & discoverable @gbif.org. #LivingData2025 🧪📚

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

It’s #WombatDay! And I just happen to be wearing my favourite wombat earrings. #DenzandCo denzandco.com #LivingData2025

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Wikipedia has 76,413 links to BHL pages. Wikispecies has 71,876. Rod Page @rdmpage.bsky.social shares which of those pages are the most viewed on each platform. #LivingData2025

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Reposted by Nicole Kearney

Siobhan Leachman @siobhanleachman.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Mike points out that as a result of this improvement to the Biodiversity Heritage Library catalogue, he produces an error report that can help improve #Wikidata. This is a great example of how reuse of Wikidata can bring about improvements to Wikidata. #RoundTripping #LivingData2025

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Rod Page @rdmpage.bsky.social asks which of BHL’s 63 million pages are the most important. Clearly the most important page on BHL is the first scientific description of the platypus 😉: doi.org/10.5962/p.30... #LivingData2025 #ILoveBHL #RetroPIDs

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

The transition of BHL from the Smithsonian is an opportunity to rethink the BHL and to explore its relationships with other projects (e.g. Wikis). @rdmpage.bsky.social shares his test bed for exploring new interfaces at #LivingData2025 bhl-light-806b8b6fa073.herokuapp.com

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

BHL Lead Programmer, Mike Lichtenberg, shares BHL’s process for exchanging persistent identifiers between BHL and Wikidata, and how this enhances discoverability of biodiversity literature, and builds stronger links between BHL and other biodiversity platforms. #LivingData2025 #IloveBHL 🌱 🔗 📖

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

@svmering.bsky.social shares how @mfnberlin.bsky.social is digitally cataloguing and digitizing its vast natural history collection of approximately 30 million objects and building a #Wikidata knowledge graph connecting taxa, specimens, people, places, publications, and events. #LivingData2025 🧪 🔗

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

You should only publish in journals that will make the biodiversity data discoverable AND export taxonomic treatments to GBIF (with DOIs) e.g European Journal of Taxonomy & Pensoft. Say Donat Agosti and Laurence Bénichou at #LivingData2025. @ejtaxonomy.bsky.social @pensoft.net #DatosVivos2025 🌱 🧪 📄

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Tens of millions of treatments exist as part of ~500 million pages of published biodiversity literature. At #LivingData2025, Donat Agosti @plazi-species.bsky.social and Laurence Bénichou @mnhn.fr are sharing workflows to liberate the data imprisoned in legacy publications. #FAIRData #OpenAccess 📚 🧪

Pages of an historic scientific publication with green boxes around sections (highlighting the taxonomic treatments) next to an image of a pinned insect specimen.

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Reposted by Nicole Kearney

Siobhan Leachman @siobhanleachman.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

During @nicolekearney.bsky.social presentation she points out that @biodivlibrary.bsky.social relies very much on donations. Support #BHL via the donate button on www.biodiversitylibrary.org #LivingData2025

LivingData2025 Biodiversity Heritage Library presentation slide explaining BHL is relying on donations for its continued existence

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Reposted by Nicole Kearney

Siobhan Leachman @siobhanleachman.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

So @nicolekearney.bsky.social talks about the fragility of infrastructure for and funding of the @biodivlibrary.bsky.social during her presentation at #LivingData2025

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

People want to learn & engage with #IndigenousDataSovereignty & #RightsBasedGovernance, but they're afraid to make mistakes & need guidance. GBIF’s #IndigenousData Task Force is addressing this. Learn more www.gbif.org/news/1Ke3Gk2... @1nativesoilnerd.bsky.social #LivingData2025 @GBIF.org

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

There is a LOT of data in GBIF (1.9 billion records), but there is currently no way for Indigenous people to identify their data. So GBIF launched an Indigenous Data Task force to strengthen indigenous voices & ensure ethical use of their data. @1nativesoilnerd.bsky.social #LivingData2025 @GBIF.org

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

“Institutions and researchers have a responsibility to disclose Indigenous collections and data to the communities they pertain to.” @1nativesoilnerd.bsky.social #LivingData2025 #DatosVivos2025

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

The #CAREprinciples are having an international movement. Indigenous people want their data to be open! But we need to make sure that data isn’t creating harm: open as possible; closed as necessary. @1nativesoilnerd.bsky.social #LivingData2025 #DatosVivos2025

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Scholars are recognising the vital importance of human-nature relationships over long timescales. Their knowledge has gone through the ultimate peer review of many generations, rather than today’s peer review process by 2-3 people. @1nativesoilnerd.bsky.social #LivingData2025

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Nicole Kearney @nicolekearney.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

“We need to be responsible scientists and make sure our data goes somewhere it can be used. Put your data in @gbif.org and @obis.org!” @achughes.bsky.social #LivingData2025 #DatosVivos2025 #OpenAccess #FAIRData

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