Last updated 21 March 2026

These terms govern use of the BHL Community Forum at https://forum.biodiversitylibrary.org.

The Forum is operated by the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and administered through Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) (referred to in these Terms as BHL, we, our, or us).

These Terms apply only to use of the Forum. Other BHL websites, services, or activities may be governed by different terms, policies, or notices.

Skip to:

Important Terms

Please read these Terms carefully. They include important information about your rights and responsibilities when using the Forum, including Disclaimers of warranty, Limits on Liability, Rules for Acceptable Use, Disputes, and the rights you retain in content you post.

By using the Forum, you agree to these Terms.

Your Permission to Use the Forum

Subject to these terms, BHL gives you permission to use the Forum.

Your permission to use the Forum is subject to the following conditions:

  • You must be at least 13 years old.
  • You may no longer use the Forum if we have previously suspended or prohibited your use of it.
  • You must use the Forum in accordance with these Terms, including the sections on Acceptable Use and Content Standards.
  • If you create an account, you must provide accurate information and keep your details up to date.

Acceptable Use

You may not use the Forum to do anything unlawful or to harm others or the Forum itself.

In particularly, you may not:

  • violate any applicable law or regulation
  • use or attempt to use another person’s account without permission
  • impersonate another person or falsely represent your affiliation with BHL or any other organization
  • post spam, advertisements, chain letters, or other unsolicited promotional content
  • harvest or collect personal data from the Forum for unauthorized purposes
  • use the Forum to distribute malware, malicious code, or other harmful material
  • interfere with the normal functioning, security, or availability of the Forum
  • attempt to bypass access restrictions or security measures
  • overload the Forum or its supporting infrastructure with unreasonable or automated requests
  • use bots, scrapers, crawlers, or other automated tools to access the Forum, except for normal search engine indexing or as otherwise expressly permitted
  • embed substantial portions of the Forum on another site using frames or similar technologies without permission
  • encourage or assist others to violate these Terms

Content Standards

The Forum is intended to support constructive discussion around biodiversity literature, collections, tools, data, and related community activities.

You may not post content that:

  • is illegal
  • is abusive, harassing, inappropriate, hateful, threatening, or defamatory
  • infringes someone else’s intellectual property rights
  • violates someone else’s privacy or confidentiality
  • contains malicious code, such as computer viruses or spyware
  • is posted solely to reserve a particular address, user name, or other unique identifier
  • includes personal, confidential, or sensitive information that you don’t have the right to disclose

The Forum also follows the BHL Code of Conduct and any additional community guidelines or moderation policies published on the Forum.

Enforcement

We reserve the right to moderate the Forum and to investigate possible violations of these Terms or other Forum policies.

This may include the right to:

  • remove, edit, redact, or re-categorize content
  • close topics
  • restrict posting privileges
  • suspend or terminate accounts
  • report unlawful activity to appropriate authorities where necessary

We may take these actions at our discretion in order to protect the Forum, its users, and BHL’s operations.

If you believe content on the Forum violates these Terms, please contact us. contact us immediately.

Your Account

You may browse parts of the Forum without an account, but some features require you to create and log into an account.

If you create an account:

  • you must provide a valid email address
  • you must keep that email address current
  • you are responsible for maintaining the security of your account
  • you are responsible for activity that occurs under your account unless and until you notify us that your account has been compromised

You must notify us promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without authorization.

You may request closure of your account by contacting one of our Forum Administrators.

We may restrict, suspend, or close your account if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, the BHL Code of Conduct, applicable law, or other Forum policies.

Your Content

You retain ownership of the intellectual property rights in content you submit to the Forum, including posts, replies, uploads, profile information, and other material you contribute.

You remain solely responsible for content you submit to the forum. You must not imply that content you post is officially endorsed by BHL unless it clearly is.

We are not required to store, maintain, or provide copies of content you submit, and we may remove or modify content in accordance with these Terms and our moderation practices.

Content you submit to the forum belongs to you, and you decide what permission to give others for it. However, by posting content to the forum, you license BHL to host, store, reproduce, publish, display, distribute, and analyze that content for the purpose of operating, improving, promoting, and archiving the Forum and related BHL community activities.

This license continues for as long as your content remains in BHL’s systems, including backups and archives, and subject to applicable law and our retention practices. If you apply an open license to content you post, such as a Creative Commons license, others may continue to use that content under the terms of that license even if the content is later removed from the Forum.

Others who receive content you submit to the forum may violate the terms on which you license your content. You agree that BHL will not be liable to you for those violations or their consequences.

Your Responsibility

You are responsible for your use of the Forum and for any content you post.

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless BHL, its fiscal sponsor or administrative host, affiliates, officers, staff, volunteers, moderators, contractors, and agents from claims, losses, damages, liabilities, and expenses arising out of:

  • your violation of these Terms
  • your misuse of the Forum
  • your infringement of another person’s rights
  • content you submit to the Forum

Disclaimers

The Forum is provided “as is” and “as available.”

To the fullest extent permitted by law, BHL and its suppliers disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and availability.

We do not guarantee that:

  • the Forum will always be available, secure, or error-free
  • content posted by users will be accurate, complete, or reliable
  • any particular post will receive a response from BHL staff or moderators

The Forum may link to third-party websites or services. BHL is not responsible for third-party services or content.

Limits on Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, BHL will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from or related to your use of the Forum.

As far as the law allows, the total liability of BHL and its suppliers for any claim arising out of or relating to the Forum or these Terms will not exceed US$50.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability to the extent such liability cannot be excluded under applicable law.

Feedback

We welcome feedback and suggestions about the Forum. See the Contact section below for ways to get in touch with us.

If you send us feedback or suggestions, you agree that we may use them without restriction or obligation to you, and without payment, attribution, or further consent.

Please do not send feedback or suggestions that you consider confidential or proprietary.

Termination

You may stop using the Forum at any time.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Forum at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe that doing so is necessary to protect the Forum, enforce these Terms, comply with legal obligations, or respond to misuse.

The sections of these Terms that by their nature should continue after termination will continue to apply, including sections on: Your Content, Feedback, Your Responsibility, Disclaimers, Limits on Liability, and General Terms.

Disputes

governing_law will govern any dispute related to these terms or your use of the forum.

You and the company agree to seek injunctions related to these terms only in state or federal court in city_for_disputes. Neither you nor the company will object to jurisdiction, forum, or venue in those courts.

Other than to seek an injunction or for claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, you and the company will resolve any dispute by binding American Arbitration Association arbitration. Arbitration will follow the AAA’s Commercial Arbitration Rules and Supplementary Procedures for Consumer Related Disputes. Arbitration will happen in city_for_disputes. You will settle any dispute as an individual, and not as part of a class action or other representative proceeding, whether as the plaintiff or a class member. No arbitrator will consolidate any dispute with any other arbitration without the company’s permission.

Any arbitration award will include costs of the arbitration, reasonable attorneys’ fees, and reasonable costs for witnesses. You and the company may enter arbitration awards in any court with jurisdiction.

General Terms

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted and the rest of the Terms will remain in effect.

You may not assign or transfer your rights under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms as part of a reorganization, change in sponsorship, change in administrative host, merger, transfer of assets, or similar institutional change affecting the Forum.

If we do not enforce a provision of these Terms, that does not waive our right to enforce it later.

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and BHL regarding use of the Forum, except where additional policies, guidelines, or notices expressly apply.

Contact

Questions about these Terms, account issues, or reports of misuse may be sent to the Forum Administrators.

We may notify you under these terms using the e-mail address you provide for your account on the forum, or by posting a message to the homepage of the forum or your account page.

Changes

We may update these Terms from time to time.

When we do, we will post the updated version on the Forum and revise the Last updated date above. If changes are material, we may also notify registered users by email or through a notice on the Forum.

Your continued use of the Forum after updated Terms take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.