BHL now includes a new content format called “virtual items,” a new deliverable on our 2024 Technical Priorities. These virtual items are different from traditional items, or journal volumes, in BHL’s collection that have been digitized from the physical version. Virtual items are comprised of individual born-digital articles that have been virtually assembled, in chronological page order, to create an item in BHL such as a journal volume or issue.
Virtual items will appear normally on a journal landing page but the usual “View Volume” link will not be present and only a “View Parts” link will be available.
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When clicking on the volume thumbnail image or the “View Parts” link for a virtual item, users are presented with a list of articles, rather than going directly to the content within the book viewer. The list of articles are presented in chronological order and allow users to navigate to the desired content.
Virtual article landing pages provide 2 options for viewing content: 1) “View Article” within the BHL book viewer OR 2) view the article natively within its original source, a repository external to BHL.
Each article is presented within the BHL book viewer as an individual unit of content rather than as part of an entire scanned item. To navigate within a virtual item, users must use the “Table of Contents” tab within the page navigation menu. This differs from the traditional page navigation functionality that allows users to scroll through all pages within a single volume.
The advantage of virtual items is that BHL can automatically harvest open access content available via Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), thereby reducing the staff labor required to manually digitize, process, and upload content to BHL’s collection. In 2024, OAI-PMH harvests are in progress for biodiversity relevant content from Pensoft Publishers. Additional OAI-PMH providers will be considered in the future. Should you have any questions about working with virtual items, please contact us via our feedback form.