Biodiversity Heritage Library Risks Shutdown After Smithsonian Cuts, With Funding Only Through 2027
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jun 18
Biodiversity Heritage Library Risks Shutdown After Smithsonian Cuts, With Funding Only Through 2027
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 18
Summary
Funding for the Biodiversity Heritage Library is projected to last only until the end of 2027 after the Smithsonian Institution stopped hosting administration, paying some staff and supporting technical infrastructure.
About $1 million a year would keep the platform running at its current level, according to BHL chair David Iggulden, who said the loss of the archive would be devastating.
The strain is already visible: additions to BHL’s Flickr page have been paused, and plans for AI tools, better optical character recognition, and mobile-friendly multilingual access lack funding.
Over 20 years, BHL has put more than 64 million pages online with contributions from more than 680 institutions, making rare biodiversity literature, field diaries and illustrations freely available worldwide.
Researchers say that archive has already helped track wildfire-driven orchid declines in Australia and supports broader climate and biodiversity research, underscoring the stakes of the funding threat.
Is the Biodiversity Library's crisis a warning for all free digital knowledge projects?
As AI promises to unlock its archives, can this vital library survive its million-dollar funding gap?
64 Million Pages at Risk: The Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Funding Crisis and the Global Fight for Open Access
Overview
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is facing an immediate and severe funding crisis, with the prospect of defunding as early as 2026 and a possible shutdown by 2027. This threatens to jeopardize a vast digital archive dedicated to saving the natural world’s forgotten secrets, putting decades of digitization and preservation work at risk. If BHL closes, free and open access to its extensive scientific collections would be lost, locking away critical information and severely impeding global scientific research, education, and conservation efforts. To avert this crisis, BHL is actively seeking support and encourages donations to maintain its operations and future.