The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global Òbiodiversity commons.Ó The BHL consortium works with the international taxonomic community, rights holders, and other interested parties to ensure that this biodiversity heritage is made available to a global audience through open access principles. The BHL has digitized millions of pages of taxonomic literature, representing nearly 100,000 titles and over 160,000 volumes.