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For our 2020 pan-BHL campaign, we’ll be participating in the global Earth Optimism event in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day!

Announcements

Update 6/25/2020: The Earth Optimism content launched today with the publication of our post on George Washington Carver. In conjunction with the publication of this post, we also launched our Earth Optimism book collection. We will continue to publish a new Earth Optimism post approximately once a week for the remainder of 2020. Follow the Earth Optimism series on our blog.

Update 6/22/2020: Since late May 2020, we have greatly reduced our social media activities out of respect for and sensitivity to wider events and conversations related to racism, injustice and violence in America and globally. We have been monitoring the conversations and movement closely and following Smithsonian’s guidance on social media during this time. We have limited our social media postings to select sharing of posts from partners and biodiversity organizations. After careful evaluation, we have decided to proceed with our original plan to begin publishing Earth Optimism content on our blog on 25 June, but have decided to launch with our post on George Washington Carver. While Carver’s contributions to agriculture are well-known, his contributions to conservation are less so, and Earth Optimism provides an opportunity to showcase this important aspect of Carver’s legacy. We believe this will be a timely and impactful way to launch our Earth Optimism blog series. Following the publication of this post, we will publish an Earth Optimism related post about once a week for the remainder of 2020.

Update 5/19/2020: As previously announced, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to postpone our 2020 Earth Optimism campaign originally planned for April. Rather than rescheduling for a single month, we have decided to publish our campaign content throughout 2020 beginning in June. We will launch the campaign on 25 June with a blog post announcing that we’ll be celebrating Earth Optimism throughout the rest of the year and highlighting our Earth Optimism book collection. We’ll then post a new blog post for the campaign generally once a week for the remainder of 2020. Please see the sections below for more details on our campaign content.

Update 3/18/2020: Given the rapidly evolving international coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, we have decided to postpone the BHL #EarthOptimism campaign originally planned for April (3-30 April). Many public events, including the in-person Earth Optimism Summit and various related events at BHL partner institutions, are being postponed as public safety precautions. Global attention and media are largely focused on the virus and its impacts. We want to be sensitive to those conversations, current circumstances, and the context in which our messages will be received.

We do not yet have an anticipated date for our campaign reschedule. We will continue to closely monitor the global situation and keep our BHL partner community updated regarding our plans to reschedule. Please stay tuned.

What is Earth Optimism? 

Earth Optimism was launched in 2017 as an international movement to celebrate conservation success stories and “turn the conservation conversation from doom and gloom to optimism and opportunity”. Next year’s campaign, spearheaded by the Smithsonian, will be an all-year, international celebration to include global events and social media activities as well as a three-day Summit in Washington, DC, 23-25 April 2020*.

*This was re-imaged as a digital summit on Earth Day (22 April) in light of COVID-19 

Overview of BHL Campaign

Campaign Dates: 25 June 2020 - December 2020

Campaign Vision for BHL Participation

We're Earth Optimists because open access to biodiversity literature helps provide researchers with the information they need to study and conserve life on Earth.

Content Focus for the BHL Campaign

Our content will focus on sharing conservation success stories from and made possible by the BHL collection and will include:

* Please note: It will be up to the institutions that planned to host Earth Optimism events to decide if or when they want to reschedule those events or reimagine them as digital events. BHL will help promote those events as appropriate if and when they are rescheduled.

Posting Schedule

  • Campaign launch will occur on 25 June 2020 with our post on George Washington Carver.
  • After launch, we will publish a new post from one of our two blog series outlined above generally once a week throughout the remainder of 2020.
  • Our social media posts will coincide with the publication of these blog posts and promote the content of each.

Campaign Goals

  1. Collaborate with partners to use BHL's collections to raise awareness about the history of and key figures in conservation and the environmental movement.
  2. Foster engagement and discussion with existing and new audiences around conservation history and issues.
  3. Demonstrate that BHL's collections support conservation activities today by providing researchers with the information they need to study and conserve biodiversity.
  4. Use BHL's collections to improve the availability and accessibility of information related to conservation history and species and ecosystem of conservation concern.
  5. Generate usage of materials in the BHL collection related to conservation topics.

Campaign Content

Campaign Outcomes

See a summary of campaign results in this short report.

Ways to Contribute

Note: We are no longer seeking contributions for this campaign.

Nominate books for our Earth Optimism Collection. Nominations can be submitted via this form: https://forms.gle/vuGZX5gfTmAbonGfA. 

Candidates for the collection include books or archival materials relevant to conservation history that are already digitized in BHL. Examples include but not limited to: 

  • Content authored by key contributors to the conservation movement; 
  • Content recording important moments in conservation history; 
  • Content detailing species and ecosystems relevant to conservation, such as early surveys of national parks or reserves. 

See the list of books nominated so far in this spreadsheet.

Volunteer to contribute a blog post to the campaign. We’re looking for posts that highlight notable people and milestones in conservation history. Posts should have a connection to BHL, either linking to books in BHL or highlighting people who have content in the Library. Email me if you want to volunteer (CostantinoG@si.edu). 

Want to contribute a blog post but not sure what to write about? See our content nominations document for some suggestions on people or books you could write about.

Identify candidates for conservation-themed BHL User blog posts for the campaign. We’re looking for researchers who use BHL to support conservation work or research on rare, threatened, or endangered species and ecosystems. Email me about any potential candidates (CostantinoG@si.edu). 

Volunteer to host a Wikipedia Workshop. We will be hosting a series of Wikipedia workshops at BHL partner libraries as part of the campaign. See section below for more details. Email me if you’re interested in potentially hosting such a workshop (CostantinoG@si.edu). 

Submit nominations for the Smithsonian Wikipedia workshop worklist. We welcome nominations for the worklist which will be provided to workshop attendees to give suggestions on endangered species for which they can create or enhance Wikipedia articles. Please submit your nominations via this spreadsheet. Instructions are provided within the spreadsheet.

Citizen Science Events

Please note: It will be up to the institutions that planned to host Earth Optimism events to decide if or when they want to reschedule those events or reimagine them as digital events. BHL will help promote those events as appropriate if and when they are rescheduled.

Details about the events as originally envisioned are below. These details are all subject to change based on the decisions of the host institutions.

  • Smithsonian Workshop on Endangered Species
    • Co-hosted by BHL and Smithsonian Libraries with support from Wikimedia DC
    • Attendees will enhance or create Wikipedia articles on endangered species, drawing on BHL's collections as source materials.
    • When? TBD
    • Where? Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (Rose Room)
    • Event Description / Proposal
    • Nominations for Workshop Worklist
      • We welcome nominations for the worklist which will be provided to workshop attendees to give suggestions on species for which they can create or enhance Wikipedia articles. Species are candidates for this worklist if they are assessed at any threatened or endangered level on a national or global imperiled species list (e.g. “Vulnerable”, “Endangered” or “Critically Endangered” on the IUCN Red List, “Endangered” or “Threatened” on the ESA federal lists for animals and plants, etc.). Plants, animals, and fungi are welcome.
      • Please submit your nominations via this spreadsheet.
  • NYBG #EarthOptimism: Digital Action Day for Endangered Species!
    • When? TBD
    • Where? LuEsther T. Mertz Library, NYBG
    • NYBG will host a series of events as part of Earth Optimism. The event will include:
      • Virtual Herbarium Expeditions Workshop (10am-12pm): This workshop will provide guided instruction for contributing to NYBG’s Virtual Herbarium Expeditions using any computer, tablet, or mobile device. Participants will learn how to use our online platform to view high-resolution photographs of NYBG plant specimens, then decipher and record relevant information about the geographic and historical origin of each collection. 
      • Open Community / Action Space (12pm-2pm): During this unstructured session between the day’s workshops, gather in community with other new and experienced volunteers to improve documentation and access to data about endangered species. NYBG Herbarium and Library Staff will provide support for attendees to participate in Virtual Herbarium Expeditions and Wikipedia article editing, and facilitate discussion about the usage of digital resources in biodiversity science.
      • Wikipedia Workshop (2pm-4pm): Experienced Wikipedia instructors will be on hand to guide new editors in creating accounts and learning the basics of how to edit Wikipedia. Participants will learn about how best to edit information about plant species on Wikipedia, and have a brief introduction to Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, two related projects used for making larger data and media sets more accessible to users around the world. Experienced editors are welcome to join and edit at any time throughout the day.
  • Field Museum will serve as a satellite location for the Smithsonian workshop.

Planning Documents

Campaign Planning Master Document

https://s.si.edu/BHLEarthOptimismPlan

Content Nominations

https://s.si.edu/BHLEarthOptimismSubmissions

Blog Posts

Wikipedia Events

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