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BHL Website Experiencing Technical Difficulties 7/16/2015

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UPDATE: Tech difficulties and performance issues on BHL have been mostly resolved. Another brief outage may be required later today or tonight to complete the recovery. Thanks for your patience.

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties that are causing slowness on the BHL website and affecting PDF generation and OCR display. We are working to correct the issue as soon as possible, and apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience and stay tuned for more updates.

Announcing Altmetric and MyTweeps on BHL!

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Have you ever wanted to learn more about the books in BHL? Or maybe find out what people are saying on social media about our collections? Or perhaps you'd like to connect with other BHL-enthusiasts?

We're excited to announce that today, as part of our Mining Biodiversity project, we've launched two new features on BHL that will allow you to do all of the above! These features are Altmetric and MyTweeps.

Altmetric


Altmetric is a UK-based company that offers tools to help track online mentions of a library, publisher, or other entities’ content. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Reddit, Google+, and Mendeley, as well as other online sources like blogs and news outlets, are indexed.

We worked with Altmetric* to track online conversations that include links to BHL books and articles. All mentions** of an individual book (which include a link to the book itself or a link to a page within that book***) are aggregated together into a single dashboard that allows you to explore all of the conversations happening about that item in one place. Each book's individual dashboard is accessible by clicking on the Altmetric badge (a colorful, donut-shaped icon) in the book viewer header or the "see more details" link in the information box that pop-ups when you hover over the Altmetric badge (see below) in BHL.

The Altmetric badge in the BHL book viewer. Click on the badge itself, or the "See More Details" link in the pop-up box that appears when you hover over the badge, to see the Altmetric dashboard aggregating conversations about this item.

Within the dashboard, you can explore the specific tweets, Facebook posts, news articles, Wikipedia articles, or blogs that talk about that particular book. Each indexed site is represented by a different color (i.e. Twitter is teal; Facebook is navy blue; etc.), so a simple glance at the Altmetric donut will tell you which sites people have mentioned that item on.

Example of the Altmetric dashboard, accessed by clicking on the donut-shaped icon or information box illustrated above, for a book in BHL.

The Altmetric icon will appear in the book viewer header for any book that has been mentioned (and where that mention includes an actual link to that book or a page within that book) on one of the indexed online sites. If there is no Altmetric icon in the book viewer header, then there have not yet been any online conversations (with a link) about that book (but you can change that!).

Altmetric dynamically tracks new online mentions of BHL books. That means that if you tweet or post about a book in BHL (and include the link to it), Altmetric will subsequently index that post and make it available in BHL via the described Altmetric icon. Thanks to the social sharing buttons we've added to BHL (see below), it's easier than ever to share your thoughts, expertise, or comments about a BHL book on social media. And thanks to our Altmetric implementation, it's also now easier than ever for others to find those comments in BHL and benefit from your knowledge!

The social media sharing buttons on the BHL website. Simply click on the desired social site to share a link to the page you are viewing in BHL. 

Altmetric picks up new mentions on Twitter, news outlets, and blogs on a daily basis. Mentions on Wikipedia, Google+, and Facebook are picked up and indexed via the described dashboards every 2-3 days.

Here are links to just a couple of BHL books that have been indexed by Altmetric. Click on the donut icon in the book viewer header to explore the fascinating conversations about each item. You can contribute directly to the online conversations using our social sharing buttons in BHL (see above), or by clicking on the appropriate links in the Altmetric dashboard (see below). Or start your own conversations about BHL books and see them appear (note the time lag for indexing on various sites above) in BHL!



Contribute to a Twitter conversation you discover in Altmetric simply by hovering over the tweet in the Altmetric dashboard and then choosing "Reply,""Retweet," or "Favorite."

Clicking on any one of the Facebook posts you discover in the Altmetric dashboard will take you directly to that post in Facebook. From there you can comment, like, or share the post within Facebook itself.

MyTweeps


Love biodiversity, books, or natural history? Want to find others who like it too? Or perhaps you'd like to find an easy way to connect with other BHL fans? Are you on Twitter?

Then look no further than MyTweeps on BHL.

MyTweeps is a tool developed by the Social Media Lab at Ryerson University, one of our Mining Biodiversity grant partners. The tool allows you to explore an individual Twitter network (those who follow a certain account on Twitter).

We've included a link to the BHL MyTweeps dashboard on the homepage of BHL. Simply click on the "BHL Twitter Community" button at the bottom of the homepage, beneath the BHL Twitter feed, to access the dashboard.

The link to the BHL MyTweeps dashboard on the BHL homepage.

The BHL MyTweeps dashboard displays the latest tweets from the Twitter accounts that follow BHL, trending hashtags and trends over time from those followers, geographic location of BHL's tweeps (i.e. followers), and the connectivity of the BHL network (i.e. who mentions whom among the BHL community of followers). We've also included an Altmetric dashboard in the lower left-hand corner of the MyTweeps page that shows the most popular BHL books on social media that week.

The BHL MyTweeps Dashboard, accessed by clicking on "BHL Twitter Community" at the bottom of the BHL homepage.

Take a look and discover a whole new network of biodiversity and BHL enthusiasts to connect, converse, and collaborate with. Or simply use MyTweeps as a way to stay informed about the topics and issues that are important to our community.

We hope you'll explore and enjoy our new social media tools and take the opportunity to learn more awesome information about our collections. If you have any questions or comments about the tools, please don't hesitate to send us feedback!

Happy socializing!


This project is made possible by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services [Grant number LG-00-14-0032-14].



*Traditionally, Altmetric tracks only DOI (Digital Object Identifiers) mentions, but for this project our team worked with Altmetric to pioneer the tracking of URIs (Unique Resource Identifiers) via Altmetric. In exchange, Altmetric has granted us free access to their license and services.
**Mentions of BHL content on social media sites (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Reddit, and Mendeley) are captured from June 2014-onwards. Mentions of BHL content on blogs and news articles are captured since the launch of BHL onwards.
***Indexed conversations are those that include links that start with "http://biodiversitylibrary.org/item/" or "http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/" or "http://biodiversitylibrary.org/part/." We are not tracking mentions with links that start with "http://biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/" due to Google Scholar tag guidelines, which form the basis of Altmetric's tracking ability.

The Conchologists: Searching for Seashells in 19th Century America

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This post was originally published on the Inside Adams blog from the Library of Congress. See the original post here.

Post by Jennifer Harbster
Research and Reference Specialist | Library of Congress

In the 19th century naturalists and enlightened amateurs in the U.S. cultivated an understanding of the natural world of this new country by documenting new and known varieties of plant and animal species. One of these scientific pursuits was conchology- the study and collection of marine, freshwater and terrestrial shells. The story of American conchology has the makings of a great screenplay – there is adventure, discovery, and a cast of passionate characters who sought to advance science, but also personalities who practiced ‘species- mongry” that sought fame and money.

Conchology was a popular area of study which is evidenced by the large portfolio of published shell indexes, catalogs, and papers in the 19th century. The Library of Congress has a variety of material that traces the history of 19th century U.S. conchology, but it also has earlier titles including the 1684 edition of Filippo Buonanni’s (1638-1725) Recreatio Mentis et Oculi: in Observatione Animalium Testaceorum Curiosis Naturae Inspectoribus considered to be the first book specifically dedicated to conchology, and as a result, the author became known as the father of conchology. We also have a book on conchology owned by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) that was part of the collection sold to the Library of Congress in 1815, Elements of Conchology, or, An Introduction to the Knowledge of Shells by Emanuel Mendes da Costa (Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard MCZ copy in BHL here). Thankfully it survived the 1851 Capitol Hill fire and is available for scholars to use.

Mendes da Costa, Emanual. Elements of Conchology. pl. 1. 1776. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12926740.

There is such an abundance of individuals associated with early American conchology that mentioning every single one would be a dissertation, not a blog post. Therefore this post will only highlight a selection of characters who helped to lay the foundation of conchology in the U.S. If you want to read more about the early pioneers, see "A Sketch of the History of Conchology in the United States" in American Journal of Science and Arts, March 1862.

First up is Thomas Say (1787-1834) who was one of the earliest noted American conchologists, although he is best known for his work in entomology. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and published some of the first accounts of American shells in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences (1817-1826) as well as American Conchology (1830-1838).

Say, Thomas. American Conchology. pl. 29. (1830-38). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/7959406.

Next is Timothy Abbott Conrad (1803-1877) who is more known for his work in geology, so his focus was mainly on the Cretaceous and Tertiary mollusks. He helped edit Say’s American Conchology, and authored American Marine Conchology (1831) and the Monography of the Family Unionidae (1836).

Isaac Lea (1792-1886) was another important figure in conchology. He criticized and corrected some of Conrad’s work regarding classification of the Unionidae- see the Lea and Conrad controversy papers. In my opinion these scientific duels makes history all the more interesting.

Amos Binney (1803-1847) and William G. Binney (1825-1909) are two scientists who played significant roles in 19th century conchology. Amos was an avid collector of rocks, birds’ eggs, and shells and was a founding member of the Boston Natural History Society. He is most notable for his work in malacology (study of the Mollusca animals, not just the shells) of land mollusks. His monumental publication The Terrestrial Air-Breathing Mollusks of the United States (1851-1878) was published after his death. His son William followed in his father’s footsteps and continued to collect and document shells in the U.S. He edited the Complete Writings of Thomas Say (1858) and his father’s Terrestrial Air-Breathing Mollusks of the United States, as well as published checklists, and compiled bibliographies of North American shells.

Binney, Amos. The Terrestrial Air-Breathing Mollusks of the United States. v. 5 (1878). pl. 66. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1869243.

The history of U.S. conchology would not be complete without mentioning Augustus Addison Gould (1805-1866) who described nearly 1,100 molluscan species. He was a physician, as well as a conchologist, whose research on Massachusetts invertebrates remains a standard reference still used today. He helped found the Boston Society of Natural History with Amos Binney and was a curator for its mollusk collection for many years. He helped to identify and describe the new shells collected during the Wilkes (or U.S.) Exploring Expedition to the Pacific (1838-1842), which was published in Atlas Mollusca and Shells (volume 12 of the Expedition series).

Gould, Augustus. Atlas Mollusca and Shells. pl. 17. 1852. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32033215.

Another figure in 19th century conchology is Constantine S. Rafinesque (1783-1840) who embodied the definition of a passionate 19th century naturalist. He was well-traveled and liberally documented the natural history of the animal and plant kingdom in the Americas and Europe. While many of his contemporaries suspected him of “species-mongry” – creating imagined species to gain fame and money – he was a significant, albeit intense, character among the early 19th century naturalists. To get an impression of his immense body of work related to conchology see The Complete Writings of Constantine Smaltz Rafinesque, on Recent and Fossil Conchology (1864) and for a biography see Constantine Samuel Rafinesque: A Voice in the American Wilderness by Leonard Warren (2004).

The practice of conchology was not limited to those formally educated in the sciences, but also included enlightened amateurs.

In 1839 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) – yes that Edgar Allan Poe – “wrote” The Conchologist’s First Book. In reality, while his name is on title page, he only created a less expensive copy of an existing book to “offer to the public” in which he contributed an original introduction and rearranged the illustrated plates. To learn more about the history of this book see the Poe Museum’s website.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Conchologist’s First Book. 1839. pl.1. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/16087743.

There were also important 19th century government figures such as Senator Benjamin Tappan (1773-1857) and Major-General Joseph G. Totten (1788-1864) who practiced conchology. Major- General Totten, a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences and a regent at the Smithsonian (National Museum), published and described many new species of New England marine Mollusca.

While researching for this post I found that many of the wives or sisters of these conchologists assisted with collecting and documenting specimens. Timothy Abbott Conrad’s sister hand colored many of his illustrations in American Marine Conchology (1831). Thomas Say’s wife Lucy illustrated numerous plates in American Conchology (1830-1838?). The website for the library at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia has more on Lucy including images of her work.

Conrad, T.A. American Marine Conchology. 1831. pl. 2. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/11115892.

Beginning in the 20th century, American women conchologists and malacologists began to publish their own research. Ida Shepard Oldroyd (1856-1940), a pioneer of West Coast conchology, authored The Marine Shells of the West Coast of North America (1924-27) that documented 2,000 species of mollusks from the West Coast. Martha Burton Woodhead Williamson (1843-1922) published “An Annotated List of the Shells of San Pedro Bay and the Vicinity” in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum, 1892: 179-220. Along with reviewing books for Nautilus, Woodhead became a member of the national executive committee of the Isaac Lea Conchological Chapter of the Agassiz Association and was involved with conservation measures related to the abalone industry.

Many of the Library of Congress’s 19th century conchology materials are part of the Rare Books and Special Collections because they contain valuable beautiful illustrated plates or are deemed prized rare items that need special care. However, there are also wonderful examples that can be accessed from the Science and Business Reading Room. Beyond the Library of Congress, there are other resources to explore, including The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia malacology/conchology resources, which was established in 1812 and is now at Drexel University. Of course, many of the items mentioned above can be found in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) - they are linked in this blog post where appropriate.

Swainson, William. Exotic Conchology. 1841. pl. 33. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28629375. More illustrations from this work in Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/72157636324706083.

I hope I have piqued your interest in the history of American conchology, so much so that you want to explore more and, perhaps, do some shell documenting of your own. So channel the spirit of a 19th century naturalist – collecting or documenting shells is easy. You don’t even need to be near the ocean because you can also find shells near other bodies of water such as rivers and lakes, and you can also discover shells on the land (terrestrial shells). You can draw and color what you collect like a 19th century naturalist or be a 21st century naturalist by photographing them. For inspiration see the BHL Flickr album from Exotic Conchology, Conchologist’s Textbook, and Conchological Manual. Also, your local library will have field guides to help you identify shells in your location or more general shell field guides that will help you identify the classes of shells.

NYBG's Flora Illustrata Wins Two Prestigious Awards

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Flora Illustrata: Great works from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden, edited by Susan M. Fraser and Vanessa Bezemer Sellers and published by The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) - a founding BHL Member - and Yale University Press, has been honored with two prestigious awards: the 2015 American Horticultural Society Book Award and the CBHL 2015 Annual Literature Award.

On 4 June, 2015, the American Horticultural Society named Flora Illustrata as one of its 2015 AHS Book Award Winners during the Great American Gardeners Awards Ceremony and Banquet in Alexandria, Virginia. The AHS Book Award, established in 1997, honors outstanding garden-related books published in North America. Candidates are judged on writing style, authority, originality, accuracy, and design quality. According to Rita Hassert, a botanical librarian at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, and one of the 2015 AHS Book Award Committee Members, "[Flora Illustrata] adeptly captures horticultural history through thoughtful, easy-to-understand discussions of the botanical and cultural significance of each piece."

Flanked by Jane Diamantis, Chair of the Awards Committee, and Tom Underwood, Executive Director of the American Horticultural Society, editors Susan Fraser and Vanessa Sellers proudly display the book award for Flora Illustrata during the June 4th Award Ceremony at River Farm, AHS headquarters in Alexandria, VA. Photo from the NYBG Blog: http://blogs.nybg.org/plant-talk/2015/06/from-the-library/flora-illustrata-named-american-horticulture-society-2015-book-award-winner/.
On 18 June, 2015, the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, Inc. (CBHL) presented Flora Illustrata with the 2015 Annual Literature Award as part of the Council's 47th Annual Meeting in Decorah, Iowa. The award, in its sixteenth year, recognizes significant contributions to the literature of botany and horticulture. According to the CBHL press release about the 2015 award, "This work celebrates one of the nation’s most important botanical literature collections and was edited by a long time CBHL member Susan Fraser," Director of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library.


Flora Illustratacelebrates key works from the collections of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden. The Library is one of the most comprehensive resources about plants anywhere in the world, holding over one million cataloged items on horticulture, floriculture, botanical illustration, garden design and history, the exploration of the New World, and land management. Through a series of essays, each written by a leading authority, and a plethora of stunning illustrations, Flora Illustrata highlights selections spanning more than eight centuries, such as rare manuscripts and iconic books including Renaissance herbals, precious botanical drawings, explorers’ notebooks, and more, and presents the library’s collection within the context of larger cultural and historical events throughout the ages.

"The contributors and editors not only describe the contents within the books but their importance as physical objects, noting the significance of the paper used, typefaces and bindings," states the CBHL 2015 Annual Literature Award press release. "The essays tell the stories of how some books came to be written, illustrated, and their social, cultural and scientific significance when first published as well as their present day influence and importance. Anyone who loves history, art, plants and gardens will enjoy this book."

Key themes throughout the book include the roles played by preeminent explorers, scientists, publishers, artists, and printmakers across the centuries, the development of bookmaking and graphic arts, and the scientific progress that led to improved identification and representation of plants. The first and final chapters also detail the history, development, and purpose of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

“The LuEsther T. Metz Library is unquestionably one of the great treasures of the world," praised Thomas E. Lovejoy, Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and University Professor in the Environmental Science and Policy department at George Mason University. "Flora Illustrata reveals with stunning scholarship the deeply intertwined history of plants, science, and humanity. Rich and fascinating beyond imagination and now accessible to anyone. A triumph of a book.”

The LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden is one of the founding institutions of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Susan M. Fraser, co-editor of Flora Illustrata and Director of the Mertz Library, is the NYBG representative to BHL and former BHL Executive Committee Secretary. NYBG has contributed over 3.8 million pages to BHL to date. Explore NYBG's collection in BHL today.

BHL Summer Newsletter and Quarterly Report Now Available!

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How does the Biodiversity Heritage Library support scientific initiatives around the world?

BHL's latest quarterly report highlights many ways that our open access biodiversity resources are supporting the work of scientists and researchers across the globe, including in the fields of taxonomy, agricultural science, ocean sciences, and more.

Plus, you can explore all of the great things that BHL has been up to the past few months.


You can also see some of our latest developments in our Summer 2015 newsletter. 


Want to stay up to date with the latest news from BHL? Sign up for our newsletter today!


Taming the Wild Social Media Animals: Facebook, Twitter, Blogger… Oh My!

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As the daughter of a children’s librarian and library branch manager, I grew up in public libraries and have become passionate about the important role a library plays within a community. This has led me down the path of becoming a librarian myself. Originally from California, I’m now living on the east coast and attending graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill pursuing my passion for this institution. This coming year is my last year of school for a dual Master degree program in Library Science and Public Administration. Normally, I work as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science managing their Twitter account and conducting usage and outreach assessments. However, this summer, I was fortunate to obtain a six week Smithsonian Libraries Professional Development Internship at the Biodiversity Heritage Library. As part of this internship, I had the amazing opportunity to gain experience with evaluating BHL’s outreach strategy and impact, as well as gain a deeper knowledge about the natural sciences and the publications that have shaped biodiversity knowledge.

The first part of my project was to conduct an environmental scan of six similar organizations to BHL and answer the following questions:
  • How does BHL’s social media presence, audience size, posts, and post engagement compare to similar organizations?
  • Are organizations similar to BHL moving away from driving social media users back to their websites by linking content and instead, simply distributing the content by posting it directly to social media platforms?
The second part of my project was to manage BHL’s social media accounts, test out new outreach strategies, and do a strategy performance comparison to answer the following questions: 
  • What are possible new outreach strategies that BHL could implement on Facebook and Twitter?
  • After implementing some of these strategies, what is the impact of these new strategies and how do they compare to BHL’s current strategies on those platforms?
If you’ve interacted with BHL on Facebook, Twitter, or Blogger anytime during the first two weeks of July, then you were talking to me and responding to my posts! Here are some of my favorite posts that I created:


After collecting all the performance data and analyzing it, I submitted a final report that summarized BHL’s social media outreach impact in comparison to other organizations, discussed the performance of seven new social media strategies, and made twelve recommendations for BHL’s outreach strategy going forward.

Maria Chiochios
Outreach Impact Strategy Intern
Biodiversity Heritage Library


"We are very excited about using the outstanding report and recommendations Maria provided to develop our outreach efforts for the future. If you'd like to learn more about Maria's findings, please contact me, crowleyb[at]si[dot]edu" - Bianca Crowley, BHL Digital Collections Manager

I spy something fowl...

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Connecting Field Book Observations to Scientific Illustrations


Field books are important primary source materials for biodiversity research. Their pages are the first to document the thoughts, observations, musings, and raw data generated or gathered by a scientist while in the field. They are the foundation upon which published natural history literature is based.

The Field Book Project (FBP) is working to improve access to field books in the Smithsonian's collections. Digitized versions of these field books are made available in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). There are currently over 500 field books from FBP in BHL.

One of these field books was written by Joshua F. B (Fry Bullitt) Camblos (1916-2012). Camblos was a medical doctor with a keen interest in ornithology, and his field books contain details about the birds, eggs, and nests he spied in the woods of Virginia. His field book available in BHL documents these observations from February-April 1934, including descriptions of nests, condition and appearance of eggs, area vegetation, and bird behavior.

Since there is such a strong correlation between field books and published literature, we thought it would be fun to expand on the theme and connect Camblos' observations to published illustrations of some of the species he described. We turned our spyglass towards the BHL collection to uncover some of our favorite published illustrations. We then present Camblos' description of the bird, nest, and eggs he found in Virginia in 1934 together with an illustration and a bit of information about the publication it came from.

We hope you enjoy our fowl-focused game of "I Spy" within the published and unpublished literature on BHL. Explore more field books from The Field Book Project in BHL and learn more about the program in this past post.

House Wren (Troglodytes aedon)



Camblos writes:
"Feb. 25
Found a last years House Wren's nest in a shed here at V.E.S. It had nine eggs in it. The nest was composed of pine twigs, leaves and lined with hair and feathers. All the eggs were rotten."

Chapman, Frank M. Bird-life: a guide to the study of our common birds. 1900. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/7855990.

Frank M. Chapman was an ornithologist, former Curator of Birds at the American Museum of Natural History, and founder of Bird-Lore, which became Audubon Magazine. In 1900 he proposed the idea of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC), an annual census of birds in the Western Hemisphere performed to this day and administered by the National Audubon Society. He also wrote many field guides, such as Bird-life: a guide to the study of our common birds, which was illustrated by wildlife artist Ernest Thompson Seton, who was also one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).


Horned Lark (called shore lark in Europe) (Eremophila alpestris)


Camblos writes:
"March 1 to 3 - Three horned larks have been here at school. They stay around a haystack to feed. They were marked as follows:
Back - Brown like meadowlark
Wings - Pointed brown
Tail - Black outer, brown inner
Head - Auriculars - Black streak down.
            Crown - Brown
            Forehead - "
Throat - Black ("collar.")
Flanks and Sides - Light chesnut
Length - About 9 inches."

Lord Lilford. Coloured figures of the birds of the British Islands. v. 4 (1885-97). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/43081338.

Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford, was a British aristocrat and ornithologist. He was one of the eight founders of the British Ornithologists' Union in 1858 and its President from 1867 until his death. His book Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands, was completed by Osbert Salvin (best known for co-authoring Biologia Centrali-Americana) after his death, and was illustrated by the famous bird artist Johannes Gerardus Keulemans.

Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)


Camblos writes:
"March 31 (Saturday)
Found a Great Horned Owl's nest in a chestnut-oak (6 ft. in diam. and about 60 ft. high) could not climb it. Will return tomorrow. Flushed both owls away from nest, so the eggs have probably hatched. (See part 2 for rest of information)"

True to his word, Camblos continues the narrative of the great horned owl the following day, with a story that involves chicks and skeletons. Check it out!

Wilson, Alexander. American Ornithology. v. 6 (1812). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46331204.

Here we see the great horned owl (lower left) amongst some of his winged friends (ave and mammal alike!). This illustration hails from Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology. Wilson, called the "Father of American Ornithology" by some, traveled over 10,000 miles across North America observing and collecting birds, which he chronicled and illustrated in American Ornithology. The publication included over 260 species, 48 of which were new to science, and was published in at least 10 editions over 70 years. Sadly, he died at the age of 47 from dysentery and exhaustion. Learn more about Wilson's incredible travels, and his other love - poetry - in a past blog post.

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)


Camblos writes:
"April 15 - (Sunday)
Found 4 bluebird eggs in a telephone pole (200 yds. from V.E.S. chapel). The entrance was about 2" in diameter and the inside hole was about 3 1/2" deep and 2 1/2" wide. The female was dead on the nest. All the eggs were fresh. Only a few dried grasses were used as nesting material."

Audubon, John James. Birds of America. v. 2 (1841). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40383680.

John James Audubon is pretty much a house-hold name. This French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter, was responsible for one of the most celebrated ornithological books ever published, Birds of America. After immigrating to the United States, Audubon undertook an expedition in 1820 up the Mississippi in an endeavor to paint all the birds of North America for eventual publication. This ambition later became Birds of America. The work represents more than 14 years of field observations and drawings by Audubon and contains 435 hand-colored, life-sized prints of 497 bird species and presents a total of more than 700 North American bird species. Learn more about the work and Audubon in a past blog post.


American Robin (Turdus migratorius)


Camblos writes:
"Apr. 23 - (Monday)
Took 3 fresh Robin eggs from a nest in a mulberry on the campus (20'). The nesting materials were coarse grass, string, mud, and a lining of fine grasses."

Robin's nest with eggs. Illustrations of the nests and eggs of birds of Ohio. 1886. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34907621.

In 1877, Genevieve Jones decided to create a series of plates for a publication depicting the nests and eggs of Ohio birds. She enlisted the help of close friend Eliza Schulze, and together the two women, amateur artists with no formal training, embarked on the venture. The first three plates, along with the accompanying text by Howard Jones, were sent to publication in 1879. Unfortunately, on August 17th, 1879, Genevieve Jones died of typhoid fever. Desiring to continue the work, Miss Schulze enlisted the help of Genevieve's mother, Mrs. N. E. Jones. Eventually, Miss Schulze relinquished all of her interests in the title to Mrs. Jones. Determined to move forward, Mrs. Jones undertook the responsibility for all of the illustrations herself, eventually employing three additional artists, Miss Nellie D. Jacob, Miss Josephine Klippart, and Miss Kate Gephart. The final work, entitled Illustrations of the nests and eggs of birds of Ohio, consists of two volumes and 68 plates. Learn more about the work in this past post.

Grace Costantino
Outreach and Communication Manager
Biodiversity Heritage Library

The Arcadia Fund Awards Grant to Support The Field Book Project

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The Smithsonian Libraries received a $511,200 grant from the Arcadia Fund for The Field Book Project to provide free, online access to the Smithsonian’s field books on biodiversity research. Over a two-year period, the grant will support the cataloging of 2,000 field books and the digitization of 2,600 field books, which will be made openly available via multiple platforms, including the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center and the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL).

The Smithsonian holds thousands of field books documenting the flora, fauna and ecosystems of the world. Launched in 2010, The Field Book Project is a collaboration to improve access to these field notes and other primary source documentation of field research related to biodiversity. As primary sources, field books are not only unique as material objects, but many also contain unique information on species and ecosystems – information that may be unpublished and unavailable through other sources.

Rafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel). Notebook kept by Rafinesque on a trip from Philadelphia to Kentucky, 1818. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/45995997. Made available in BHL as part of The Field Book Project.

The Smithsonian Libraries, the Smithsonian Institution Archives, BHL and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History will work closely together to conduct conservation reviews, catalog, digitize and provide open access to the natural history field books at the Smithsonian. “Bringing these works together with the published literature means we can begin to fill some of these information gaps to better understand ecosystem changes and the context behind the research. Such knowledge can empower scientists, regional and national leaders, and others to develop strategies for addressing biodiversity loss,” said Martin Kalfatovic, BHL program director.

Moynihan, M. Cephalopoda (Squid) 1971-1973, 1975-1979, 1981-1982 (1 of 3)http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46283099. Made available in BHL as part of The Field Book Project.

The work of initiatives like The Field Book Project directly relates to the Smithsonian’s grand challenge of broadening access to collections. “Original field notes are often hidden in larger collections of archival material and are difficult to find,” explained Anne Van Camp, director of the Smithsonian Institution Archives. “Information contained in field books tells the stories of exploration, discovery and collecting events that have shaped our understanding of the natural world. The notes also provide deep insight into the personal nature of those individuals that first encountered the vast biodiversity across the Earth. Providing access to this information allows researchers to further understand the history of scientific exploration and to relate that past to the present.”

Browse over 500 field books from The Field Book Project in BHL. Stay tuned to our blog for future updates from The Field Book Project. 

The Tarantupedia, an online encyclopaedia for the biggest spiders in the world

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Tarantulas are amazing. Not only do they include the largest of all spiders, with some species reaching a legspan the size of a dinner plate, but they are arguably some of the most beautiful too. While famous for giants that inhabit the jungles of South America, some species barely grow larger than your thumb nail. Some species live on trees in damp forests while others live in self-constructed tubular burrows in the ground in some of the most inhospitable deserts. Some have special protective hairs on their bodies which cause extreme itching when they come into contact with the mucous membranes of potential predators, while others produce a hissing sound in self-defence. While they are the stuff of nightmares for some people, they are the source of absolute fascination for others.



The Tarantupedia is relatively new venture started about three years ago by a tarantula enthusiast in South Africa, Dimitri Kambas. His goal is to produce the authoritative online resource for information on tarantulas. Importantly, his focus is on scientific information, something that stands in stark contrast with the majority of tarantula websites which are centered on keeping tarantulas in captivity. The Tarantupedia is different. You won’t find captive care sheets or guidelines on how to breed a particular species. Instead you will find the kind of the information reminiscent of a detailed scientific publication, but presented in an easy-on-eye, comfortable-to-work-with format intended for scientists and interested members of the general public alike.

Dimitri Kambas, Co-Founder and Editor, The Tarantupedia.

The project began with the construction of a digital taxonomic catalogue, a presentation of tarantula classification linked to information on taxonomic authors and their publications. The Tarantupedia uses modern web technologies, so the data are presented in a dynamic format where the user can view the same information from multiple different perspectives. You may want to know who described a particular species, or how many species a particular author has described. You can get lists of species mentioned in a particular publication, or if you’re interested, you can get a short biography for some of the better known tarantula experts. You can even see where the original type specimen for a particular species was collected, presented neatly on Google Maps.

Tarantula taxonomy had early beginnings, with Linnaeus himself even responsible for the descriptions of one or two species. Developing the Tarantupedia has required investigation of some of the earliest literature, and this is where the Biodiversity Heritage Library has been invaluable. Through the efforts of the BHL, many obscure and largely forgotten taxonomic articles were available for consultation where they were needed. The Tarantupedia links directly to the BHL so users can examine relative literature for themselves at the click of a mouse. Using the BHL API, Tarantupedia finds instances of species names in the articles stored on BHL and creates hyperlinks directly to those article pages where the species names are mentioned. Anyone who has worked with old literature knows how daunting it can be trying to track down old but important works. Thanks to the BHL, not only do you get the relevant literature, but you can go right to the parts of the literature that are of interest to you! This creates a resource that taxonomists can use to find the information they need fast, lowering the barrier to further taxonomic research which is sorely needed for many tarantula taxa.

Tarantupedia record showing links to BHL literature.

If you’re interested to learn more please visit the Tarantupedia at www.tarantupedia.com. This is an on-going project with a growing base of contributors from around the world and new information is added almost daily. Suggestions for improvements are welcome, as are contributions in the way of photographs, sighting records, and missing literature. With continued support, particularly from other projects like the BHL, the Tarantupedia will become an invaluable resource for anyone interested in these amazing animals.

Enjoy a selection of historic tarantula illustrations from books in the BHL collection on Flickr:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Historic Field Diaries from BHL Australia Now in BHL!

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This post was originally published on the Museum Victoria Blog. See the original post here.

By Nicole Kearney
Coordinator | Biodiversity Heritage Library Australia

In November 2014, Museum Victoria started a project to digitize and transcribe the field diaries in our collection. These diaries, handwritten by Australia's early field naturalists long before the days of electronic notetaking, are rich in scientific data and historic detail. They provide insights into past species distribution and abundance, as well as the trials and wonders experienced on historic expeditions.

Afternoon tea with Graham Brown (this diary, volume 4, is now viewable on the Biodiversity Heritage Library). Image: Museum Victoria. Source: Museum Victoria.

They are fascinating sources of information and yet very few people have ever read them. As handwritten documents, each was created as a single hard copy. They have been carefully stored in the museum's archives for decades, protected from dust and light but inaccessible to anyone but the few curators who knew of their existence. Until now.

Rebecca Carland, Museum Victoria's History of Collections Curator, with Graham Brown's field diaries. Image: Nicole Kearney. Source: Museum Victoria.

Over the past nine months we have digitised 24 historic field diaries from our collection and have been steadily uploading them onto DigiVol, the online volunteer transcription portal developed by the Atlas of Living Australia and the Australian Museum. In DigiVol, the pages can be individually transcribed, with a verification process ensuring the quality of the result.

We are immensely grateful to the volunteers who have contributed their time and attention to transcribing our field diaries. Ten field diaries have been fully transcribed and the volunteers are now working on a diary written by notable ornithologist Frederick Lee Berney between 1898 and 1904. 

The first collection of five field diaries to be run through the digitisation and transcription process was produced by Graham Brown between 1948 and 1958. Now that they have been transcribed, the contents of the diaries can be searched and the data extracted. When analysed, Brown's diaries contained 5611 bird sightings, complete with dates and locations. This historic data will now be made available to scientists and can be used to inform climate change studies and species management plans.

A small fraction of the 5611 bird observations Graham Brown recorded in his diaries. Image: Nicole Kearney. Source: Museum Victoria.

The next step is to make the images of the field diaries available through a publicly accessible website. We have just uploaded four volumes of the Graham Brown field diaries and their transcriptions onto the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and we will continue to add more over time. Museum Victoria has already contributed over 500 rare books and historic journals to this global repository of historic literature (through a project funded by the Atlas of Living Australia). We are thrilled that our field diaries are now joining these other significant volumes.

Help us unlock the observations in our historic field diaries
If you would like to become a transcription volunteer, sign up on the DigiVol website.

Beyond Shells: The Birth of Malacology

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Until the late 18th century, the study of mollusks was based largely on shells. Very little research or published information existed about molluscan anatomy and soft tissues. Giuseppe Saverio Poli, recognized by many as the father of malacology, changed this with his monumental publication, Testacea utriusque Siciliae eorumque historia et anatome (1791-1827).

Poli, born in 1746 in Molfetta, Italy, studied classics, theology, and natural sciences at the University of Padua. In 1774, he traveled to London during an appointment at the Royal Military Academy, where he met physician and collector William Hunter, who suggested that he study the mollusks of the Mediterranean.

External morphology of a female paper nautilus (Argonauta argo) with egg case. Poli, Giuseppe Saverio. Testacea utriusque Siciliae. (1791-1827). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44020354

In the midst of a turbulent time in European history, with the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Poli published his groundbreaking treatises on the comparative anatomy and classification of mollusks of Naples and Sicily, complete in three volumes under the title Testacea utriusque Siciliae eorumque historia et anatomeThe first two volumes were published under Poli's supervision in 1791 and 1795, but the outbreak of civil war in 1799 delayed the publication of the third, which was eventually published posthumously in two parts from 1826-27. The first part of volume three lists Poli as the author but provides annotations by Stefano Delle Chiaje, while the second part was authored by Delle Chiaje and describes the remaining species illustrated by Poli.

Shell morphology and internal and external anatomy of Mediterranean scallop (Pecten jacobaeus). Poli, Giuseppe Saverio. Testacea utriusque Siciliae. (1791-1827). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44020302

Testacea utriusque Siciliae is not only exquisitely illustrated with engraved colored plates featuring matching line-drawing versions with labels, but it also provided significant and novel insights about mollusks. While most of his contemporaries studied mollusks only through the lens of their shells, Poli recognized the importance of the information available in the soft tissues and documented molluscan morphology in great detail. Many of his observations were new to science; Poli was the first author to identify structures on the mantle edge of some bivalve mollusks as eyes.

Testacea utriusque Siciliaewas also the first treatise on molluscan biochemistry and physiology. A variety of tools, developed by Poli himself, were used to study reproduction and digestion, measure the contractile force of adductor muscles, trace blood flow and study blood composition, and describe the crystalline structure and chemical composition of shells in mollusks.

Instruments used by Poli, including dissecting tools, microscopes, and tools to measure the contractile force of adductor muscles in clams. Poli, Giuseppe Saverio. Testacea utriusque Siciliae. (1791-1827). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44020202.

Finally, Testacea utriusque Siciliaewas the first work to propose a classification system for mollusks based on soft anatomical characteristics. The predominant classification system of the day was based on the structure of the shells.

External morphology and dissections of the Mediterranean pen shell (Pinna nobilis). Poli, Giuseppe Saverio. Testacea utriusque Siciliae. (1791-1827). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44020338.

In short, Testacea utriusque Siciliae established molluscan comparative anatomy as a distinct discipline, secured Poli's position as the father of malacology, and provided an essential foundation for the work of future malacologists.

You can view this monumental publication for free in BHL, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Information for this post based on the essay "At the Dawn of Malacology: The Salient and Silent Oeuvre of Giuseppe Saverio Poli" by Ilya Tëmkin from Natural Histories (2012).

Brilliant and Remarkable Birds of Brazil

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One of the joyous things about being a Librarian caring for special and rare collections is that you frequently find something remarkable and new to you in those collections. Add on the role of BHL staffer and this multiplies through digitization requests posted by users of BHL.

Approximately five years ago a request was posted for a book unknown to me by an artist I had not come across. The catalogue record flagged that it was a folio of coloured plates which consigned the volume to a long queue for bespoke in-house scanning. Time passed and circumstances changed, and earlier this year I was informed that it had been scanned and was ready for loading to BHL. We have access to a new cloud-based system for loading our scans into BHL, and this volume was to be our test subject. A little bit of research indicated that this volume was indeed remarkable.

Descourtilz, J. T. (Jean Théodore). Oiseaux brillans du Brésil. (1834). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47697413.

Jean-Theodore Descourtilz was born in 1796 in France, one of eight brothers. His father was Michel Etienne Descourtilz (1775-1836), a physician and botanist who wrote Flore pittoresque et médicale des Antilles (1821-1829). Jean-Theodore produced the 600 plates which illustrate this tome. He seems to have been well travelled with evidence of being in Haiti aged 3 and in the Antilles by 1821 in order to make the illustrations for his father’s book. Jean-Theodore seems to have arrived in Brazil around 1826 and in 1831 had presented a manuscript on hummingbirds to the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Histoire des Oiseaux-mouches Habitant des Districts de Rio de Janeiro, Bananal, San-Paulo, Macahé, Canta-Gallo et Ilha-Grande contained full colour illustrations and meticulous notes about the hummingbirds and their habitats. Two of the species were very rare and had been seen only twice by Descourtilz since he arrived in the country. The original paintings were sold by Christies in 1992 for over £85,000 and a facsimile edition was produced in 1960 as limited run entitled Beija-flores do Brasil- Oiseaux-mouches - orthorynques du Brésil.

Descourtilz, J. T. (Jean Théodore). Oiseaux brillans du Brésil. (1834). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47697212.

In 1834, Descourtilz published his first book, Oiseaux brillans et remarquables du Brésil, containing 60 beautifully coloured plates lithographed by Callier. There appears to have been no title page or text in the published edition, however the copy held by the Natural History Museum has handwritten title page and a page of text for each illustrated species. It is notable that Descourtilz illustrated the birds on appropriate food plants and captured detailed information on habits, customs, behaviour and habitat as well as the usual dates and location. This book is one of the rarest tomes of birds of the Americas. The Sotheby’s sale catalogue for the H. Bradley Martin Ornithological Library sale in 1989 states there are only four known copies; the copy for sale from H. Bradley Martin, a copy in the Teyler Foundation in Haarlem (Netherlands), a copy in the British Library, and a copy in the Library of Congress. At this time I can state there is a copy in the Natural History Museum (from the Rothschild Collection) and the Teyler Foundation copy was used to produce a facsimile edition Pageantry of Tropical Birds. However I have been unable to confirm that copies are held by the British Library or the Library of Congress, and have no knowledge of the whereabouts of the H. Bradley Martin copy.

Descourtilz, J. T. (Jean Théodore). Oiseaux brillans du Brésil. (1834). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47697188.

Between 1852 and 1856, Descourtilz's book Ornithologie Brésilienne, ou Histoire des Oiseaux de Brésil, remarquables par leur plumage, leur chant ou leurs habitudes was published in four parts. Forty-eight of the plates were developed from Oiseaux brillans du Brésil, and it contains fifteen species and one genus previously undiscovered.

Descourtilz, J. T. (Jean Théodore). Oiseaux brillans du Brésil. (1834). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47697281.

The National Museum of Brazil recruited Descourtilz in 1854, but unfortunately he died the next year from arsenic poising while preparing specimens for the Museum. Very little else is known about his life, and he is buried near Aracruz, near the coast of Brazil a few hundred kilometers north of Rio de Janeiro.

Descourtilz, J. T. (Jean Théodore). Oiseaux brillans du Brésil. (1834). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47697220.

So five years on Oiseaux brillans du Brésil is available on the Biodiversity Heritage Library! Please enjoy it. You can browse the illustrations from this stunning work in Flickr.

Alison Harding
Librarian, Ornithology and Rothschild Libraries 
Natural History Museum at Tring

Smorball and Beanstalk: Games that aren’t just fun to play but help science too

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As game players are growing beanstalks and leading the Eugene Mellonballers to victory, historic books are being saved from digital oblivion. In June of 2015, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and Tiltfactorreleased two games called Smorball and Beanstalk to help crowdsource the task of text correction.

What’s the Purpose? 


When a book is first digitized, its pages are merely image files and the text cannot be searched. Optical character recognition software (OCR) converts these page images into machine encoded text that can be searched, but historic literature has many idiosyncrasies that inhibit accurate OCR. BHL wanted to harness the power of crowdsourcing and the fun of gaming to allow humans to help correct inaccurate OCR. The games present extracted words from BHL books that users type out, thus verifying the spelling. These submissions are used to correct the OCR in BHL. By presenting users with a high volume of words in rapid succession during each play-through, we can receive a large number of word corrections and achieve a significant level of OCR correction.

Sample of poor OCR output.

Who are the Audiences for each Game? 


Smorball, which presents words at an increasingly rapid pace, is designed for a gaming audience with experience tackling progressively challenging levels and speedy data-entry. Beanstalk was designed for players that are not typically gamers, and are thus not as comfortable with gamification techniques such time-bound typing, but still want to help improve access to BHL books. Beanstalk allows players to type words at their own pace, but incorporates evolving sights, sounds, and a leaderboard to keep the game engaging and dynamic.


What are players saying? 


Over two thousand people have played the games since the launch, and we have received positive feedback from players and news outlets.



Mini games to improve library digitization” by Antoine Oury.



Some users have asked questions about typing strategies.


Other users have asked about the sometimes odd behavior of the games.


Repeated words occur when that word appears more than once on a single page. If OCR software misinterprets a word once, it will likely misinterpret it again. Sometimes it will even misinterpret in more than one way e.g. (“fish” may be interpreted as “f1sh” and “flsh”) which means that the game can’t filter out these duplicates from being shown to the player. Symbols may show up in the games when the OCR software has misinterpreted them as alpha-numeric characters. We suggest choosing the “skip” option or substituting any alpha-numeric character for the symbol.

The Buzz 


The games have been demoed at several conferences and sites since launch including Empire Farm Days and the Howe Library in Hanover New Jersey.

Smorball will also be featured at this fall’s Boston Festival of Games (BFIG).


Reviewers at BFIG had this to say about Smorball:

  • “The world of the sports game isn’t innovative or unique, but it’s an original made-up game where humans get to smash robots, which makes it fun to watch and play.” 
  • “ I do feel that this is a complete game, very polished, and addictive.” 

Smorball is now available on Newgrounds.com– a site for “artists, game developers, musicians, voice actors and writers to share their stuff on the web.”


Reviewers on newground.com had this to say about the game:


We Need More Players! 


In order for us to scale to an effective level we need tens of thousands of players. If you have not played Smorball or Beanstalk please give them a spin and let us know what you think. Submit your feedback here: Smorball and Beanstalk.

Please share widely with your friends, family and co-workers who would enjoy playing a good game and helping science research at the same time!

Finally, we couldn’t end this post without acknowledging some of the top players from our Beanstalk leaderboard. Thanks to “mlwoodward” “patty_john” and “ldv27” - Keep growing those beanstalks and helping us improve our texts!

Trish Rose-Sandler 
Principal Investigator
Purposeful Gaming and BHL

Smorball and Beanstalk were designed as part of the Purposeful Gaming and BHL project, which explores how digital games can make scanned content more accessible and searchable for cultural institutions. Based at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, “Purposeful Gaming and BHL” was established in 2013 through an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant and includes partners at Harvard University, Cornell University, and The New York Botanical Garden.


Horses and the History of the Circus

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The history of the modern circus is deeply rooted in horsemanship.  The first modern circuses, which took place during the 18th century, were primarily demonstrations of tricks performed on a horse, first by former soldiers who learned such skills during military training, and later by talented men and women trained from a young age to accomplish acrobatics and other feats atop a horse.  In order to teach horses to perform tricks for the circus amphitheater, horsemen relied upon instruction from mentors and in books such as Dr. Sutherland’s System of Educating the Horse, with Rules for Teaching the Horse Some Forty Different Tricks or Feats. . .  This 1861 text by Dr. G. H. Sutherland claims to be the first ever published on “Educating the Horse” (view in book here).  

Horse trainers in Great Britain were considered humane in their work, and as London trainer Charles Montague wrote in his 1881 book, Recollections of an Equestrian Manager (in Simon, 2014, pp. 29-10): “The horse must first be brought to feel that you are his master—his superior; not through fear of your power; but on the contrary, through his experience that though you have the power, it is always accompanied by kindness. . .never with cruelty.”  In America, Dr. Sutherland represented those using humane animal training practices, and in his text he stated that he was “convinced, by observations as well as experience, that we can successfully tame, subdue, and control the most wild and vicious horse by kindness alone. . .” (view in book here), and he proposed a training system that vehemently avoided "the use of the whip, drugs, or fetters. . .” (view in book here).


Horse at the circus in Stockholm (1905) | Unknown Attribution
Sutherland’s horse tricks are quite delightful, and include training the horse to remove the trainer’s “cap, coat and mittens” (view in book here).  Other tricks include teaching the horse to stand up, lay down, knock on a door, say yes or no, fetch and retrieve objects, walk on hind legs, to unbuckle his own saddle and remove it, open and close doors, pump water, fire a pistol, tell his A, B, C’s, spell, read, and more amazing things!  All of these tricks begin in the book here.  When Philip Astley created the first modern circus in 1768 in London, he had his horse count, perform mind reading, and play dead.  In addition, Astley, and later more performers he hired, would end up performing acrobatics on the horse.

Equestrian Acrobatics | Theatrical and Circus Life (1893)
The history of the circus goes back thousands of years, with early depictions of acrobats from Egypt from 1300 to 1200 BCE.  The Museo Egizio in Turin has an Egyptian wall fragment from this period showing a female acrobat in a backbend, with long, wavy hair flowing to the ground, large, gold hoop earrings, and wearing only a short sarong.  Mexican ceramic statuettes from 200 BCE to 500 BCE, and prior periods, show contortionists doing splits.  The Mexican statuettes, like a Hellenic Greek statuette depicting an acrobat, have in common a sense of joy and play: the subjects are smiling and theatrical.  

Of course most people might recognize the term, “circus,” or the idea of performances taking place in a circular venue when they think of ancient Rome and the gladiator contests and chariot races.  Chariot races began the trend of highlighting the horse’s—and his master’s—prowess in a circular arena during a longer period of entertainment by other performers.  These Roman gladiator and chariot contests included interludes with juggling, acrobatics, animal baiting, and sometimes people performing intricate religious rites.  

Ancient China and Greece each had their own forms of traveling circuses, and medieval Europe had local fairs with performers, as well as hosting traveling performers who included fortune tellers, jesters, dancers, musicians, and tight-rope walkers.  The medieval, and Renaissance, European Church denounced performers who walked over tight-ropes and hot coals, people who could drink boiling oil or swallow fire, strongmen, and others performing seemingly miraculous stunts, thinking the performers too arrogant, or unhappy that money which should go to the Church was being spent on frivolous entertainment; sometimes tight-ropes were strung between steeples and performers were banned from entertaining at religious festivals.

"Bicycle Riding Extraordinary" | Theatrical and Circus Life (1893)
The modern version of the circus which we know today has its roots in 18th-century Great Britain.  Philip Astley (1742-1814), the son of a veneer cutter and cabinetmaker, decided he wanted to be a horseman, since men on horseback were revered at the time as strong and brave, often prior solders.  Astley joined the Dragoons cavalry regiment, became a distinguished soldier during the Seven Years War, and left the military in 1766 as sergeant-major.  At six feet tall, Astley looked impressive atop a horse and easily started earning a living as a horseman with his white steed, performing trick riding and swordsmanship he had learned in the military.  After a few years of traveling to fairs to perform with his horse, he opened a riding school in 1768 close to Westminster Bridge, London, where he trained aristocratic young men and women.  After his morning trainings, he entertained to an audience in the school’s amphitheater.  He stood and performed acrobatics on his horse, adding ever more balancing tricks, a second horse, and a female equestrienne, Patty, who became his wife; their son John joined the act, as well.  He added clowns, magicians, tumblers, and rope dancers.  Astley gained competitors, but his was the first “modern” circus, and though the focus was mainly on the horses, he made the other acts integral to the entire spectacle. 

"Bareback Riding" | Theatrical and Circus Life (1893)
Circuses developed in Europe and America between the 18th and 19thcenturies, with more and more death-defying feats, skimpier outfits on female horse riders and acrobats, and larger-scale performances of plays or poems recreated as stories acted out by performers and horses (and sometimes, elephants).  The circus, after Astley’s time, was considered by some critics to be less of an aristocratic affair and more of a degraded mixing of high and low classes in order to see licentious performances.  However, people of all social ranks were dazzled by the spectacles and continued to attend the circus.  People especially loved women who performed feats on horseback, viewing these women as dominant and yet feminine at the same time, able to control the mighty beast and look dainty while doing so. 

"Circus Riders"| Theatrical and Circus Life (1893)
The circus had come to represent a close-knit community that offered performers a chance to travel the world, and be praised for their physical feats and appearance.  Many children and adults dreamt of “running off to join the circus,” a 19th-century idea that stayed in the public’s imagination through the late 20th-century.  (Did you know that when she was a little girl in the 1940s, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis wore a crown when she rode her horse and said she would grow up to be “Queen of the Circus?”) 

Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barnum (1810-1891) was a man of many trades before he became a legendary circus entrepreneur.  He had a successful traveling circus, and purchased Scudder’s American Museum in 1841 and renamed it Barnum’s American Museum.  It housed sensational curiosities like the fake “Fiji Mermaid”, wax historical figures, relics from the American Revolution, taxidermy specimens, live performers, animals (including hippos, monkeys, snakes, a kangaroo, giraffes, and tigers), and an aquarium with whales.  A horrific fire broke out in 1865, tragically killing most of the animals, and destroying most of the objects and exhibitions.  Barnum re-opened the Museum at a different location but it burned down once again in 1868, again killing animals and destroying relics, although human performers were saved by firefighters. 

First Fire at Barnum's American Museum, 1865 | Harper's Weekly
Second Fire at Barnum's American Museum, 1868 (stereoview image) | Courtesy of Jack Mord, The Thanatos Archive
After the second American Museum fire, Barnum focused on traveling with his circus, engaging in several partnerships—the most famous, perhaps, with the owner of the very successful Great London Circus, James Anthony Bailey.  Bailey was an excellent circus director, and Barnum continued to be in the spotlight as he promoted the circus.  By 1889, the Barnum & Bailey Circus was comprised of 1,200 people, and hundreds of horses and animals, and traveled on tour in Europe.  When the Circus returned to America in 1903, Barnum & Bailey had serious competitors in the form of the Ringling Brothers.  When Barnum died, he left the Circus to Bailey, whose widow, when Bailey died, sold it to the Ringling Brothers.  Thus the creation of the “Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus,” which still operates today.

While the grand days of the circus died down by the 1950s due to new forms of entertainment, such as Disneyland, there are still active circuses to this day.  The circus has always been fraught with the tension of death-defying feats, and the idea of whether it was a moral or immoral concept of entertainment.  However, people continue to be dazzled by the magic of spectacle which the circus provides, and has provided, in its many iterations over the years.


Laurel Byrnes
Social Media and Outreach Volunteer
Biodiversity Heritage Library

Special thanks to Jack Mord (The Thanatos Archive) for special use of the stereoview image of the second fire at Barnum's American Museum in 1868. 
  

References:

Jennings, J. J. (1893). Theatrical and circus life. . . Chicago: Laird & Lee, Publishers. 

Simon, L. (2014).  The greatest shows on earth: A history of the circus.  London: Reaktion Books.

Sutherland, G. H. (1861).  Dr. Sutherland’s system of educating the horse, with rules for teaching the horse some forty different tricks or feats. . . Potsdam, NY: Fay, Baker & Co.’s Steam Power Presses.


"What a Gem!" BHL Supports Teuthology Research

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Here's a word of the day for you: Teuthology.

What does it mean? It's the study of cephalopods. What are cephalopods? Well, they are a class of mollusks that include two extant subclasses: Coleoidea and Nautiloidea.

Still not sure what cephalopods are? You probably know them by their more common monikers: octopuses, squid, cuttlefish, and nautiluses. There are over 800 living species of cephalopods known today.

Dr. Ian G. Gleadall, Reader in Marine Biology at the International Fisheries Science Unit of Tohoku University Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Sendai, Japan.

Dr. Ian G. Gleadall has been studying the biology of cephalopods (particularly octopuses) for 40 years. Dr. Gleadall (a marine biologist who works in Sendai, Japan) discovered BHL in November, 2014 while visiting the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. It has had a profound impact on his research. As Dr. Gleadall explains:

"[BHL] is a truly wonderful tool. Highly useful, reliable in operation, intuitive and easy to use. I have been writing a complex systematic review of cephalopod taxonomy, with an emphasis on the octopuses of the Indo-Pacific region, particularly centred on the seas of the Japanese Archipelago. Because of many previous errors and unclear references to earlier studies in this field, I had recently decided to go deeper into previous naming systems for the Cephalopoda, particularly as regards the various groups of octopus. 
"There are a number of different, rival schemes in taxonomy, so it is necessary to read the original description for each name in order to assess which should be regarded as the most appropriate to use. Many of the earlier works were published in rare and valuable tomes which are now difficult to get hold of. These books are sometimes huge in size and libraries are reluctant to have them inspected at first hand because their condition is often deteriorating and they may be heavy and difficult to handle. Getting copies of such works is in itself often very difficult and the administrative procedures can be frustrating and time consuming. It is also expensive to visit each institution concerned in many different countries.

"However, the BHL online catalogue of works provides access to a large number of such rare works, allowing me to find and study many of the books I need to use from the comfort of my laptop computer and a wireless internet connection. If I want to have copies of relevant sections, it is very easy to mark pages for collation into a customized PDF file, or even to download an entire book. This service has proven to be extremely valuable to me.  
"Over recent months I have been able to quickly gain access to many older texts and this has enabled me to achieve my aims far quicker than would otherwise have been possible. For example, often when I read a new work, I find further references to works that I previously was not aware of. I can then quickly look for (and find) those using BHL. Normally, this could involve having to revisit a library in another country that I have already visited once, or I would have to try to get the library staff to send me a copy, neither of which is as fast or convenient as using BHL."

During intensive periods of study, Dr. Gleadall uses BHL daily, sometimes downloading up to four 4 custom PDFs in a day, in addition to studying other materials online. It's not surprising, then, that the ability to download custom PDFs is Dr. Gleadall's favorite feature on BHL.

"About half of the publications that I access on BHL I read online and take notes. Where there is a lot of material and I do not have time to complete my work in a single session (or if there are many data-dense tables, for example), I'll select the pages that I'm interested in and arrange for a custom PDF," explains Dr. Gleadall. "[The custom PDF service] is so easy and intuitive to use (why can't other internet services be so convenient and trouble-free?!)."

A book by Ian Gleadall (in the final stages of publication) concerning the classic 1929 monograph on the Cephalopoda by Madoka Sasaki. In writing this book, many of the references required to prepare the synonymies of various cephalopod orders, families, genera and species were viewed using the BHL online archive.

A highlight for Dr. Gleadall in his research is the opportunity to explore some of the beautiful works of art that are part of the heritage of biological description, such as the stunning cephalopod lithograph created by Ernst Haeckel as part of his Kunstformen der Natur(1904).

54th plate from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (1904), depicting squids and octopuses classified as Gamochonia. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47388247. 
Key to Haeckel's plate, above. 1) Chiroteuthis veranyi (Férussac); 2) Histioteuthis ruppellii (Vérany); 3) Pinnoctopus cordiformis (Quoy and Gaimard); 4) Octopus vulgaris(Lamarck); 5) Octopus granulatus (Lamarck).
"In modern times, there are many artful illustrations and computer graphic images, but many people are unaware of the gorgeous images of more than 100 years ago, where no expense was spared to produce magnificent series of books reporting on the collections from localities far and wide by the early explorers," lauds Dr. Gleadall.

While the experience of seeing these illustrations in person creates an impression that a computer screen cannot quite replicate (as Dr. Gleadall explains, many of the rare volumes containing these artworks are massive in size), it is often difficult to gain access to such works in physical library collections. The availability of these books in BHL, and the artwork on the BHL Flickr, ensures that everyone can see and experience this wonderful biodiversity heritage.

It is this immediate and unrestricted access that has most-impacted Dr. Gleadall's work.

"BHL has considerably smoothed the way for me and speeded up the rate at which I can view a large number of relevant references. I look forward to being able to publish my results far more quickly than would otherwise have been possible without BHL. Many thanks."

Thank you, Dr. Gleadall, for sharing with us the impact that BHL has on your work. Do you use BHL to support your own research? Want to tell us about it? Send an email to feedback@biodiversitylibrary.org!

BHL Exhibit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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In 2014, BHL welcomed the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a member. The University's Library is a campus-wide network of libraries serving programs of learning and research in many disciplines and is the largest public university research library in the country with more than 13 million volumes. The Biology Library collection alone contains over 137,000 volumes.

To date, the University Library has contributed over 1.2 million pages from over 4,400 volumes to BHL. Illustrations from many of these books have also been made available in the BHL Flickr. Explore the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Collection in BHL and Flickr.

"Celebrating the Biodiversity Heritage Library: Supporting Scientists Worldwide" exhibit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Main Library Marshall Gallery. Image Credit: Kelli Trei.

On September 1, 2015, the University Library unveiled an exhibit about BHL at the Main Library Marshall Gallery entitled: "Celebrating the Biodiversity Heritage Library: Supporting Scientists Worldwide." This free exhibit highlights contributed materials from the University as well as the BHL collection itself and draws attention to Library digitization efforts and historic scientific materials on campus. The exhibit runs through September 30, 2015. Learn more.

"Celebrating the Biodiversity Heritage Library: Supporting Scientists Worldwide" exhibit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Main Library Marshall Gallery. Image Credit: Kelli Trei.

Be sure to check out the exhibit if you're visiting or live near the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and explore the University Library's collection on BHL!

Nicole Kearney from BHL Australia visits BHL at Smithsonian Libraries

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As the Coordinator of BHL Australia, I’m based at Museum Victoria in Melbourne. This is a very long way from BHL headquarters in Washington DC – in both space and time. The time difference between Melbourne and DC is 14 hours and, while I’ve had countless conversations with BHL staff via email, our opposing work hours make phone calls or virtual meetings almost impossible.

Last month I was able to visit my BHL colleagues in person. I had been invited to speak at the Society of American Archivists conference about my work digitizing and transcribing the handwritten field diaries of Australia’s early naturalists. I joined six other speakers, including BHL’s Julia Blase, in a session about the importance of natural history archives. The meeting was in Cleveland, only a stone’s throw (from my perspective) from Washington, D.C. This was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

I spent four days at the Smithsonian Libraries and had face-to-face meetings with every member of the BHL Secretariat, as well as with staff from the Transcription Center, the Digitization Lab and the Cullman Rare Book Library. Many of our discussions were about how to make BHL work even better for our users, such as how to display transcripts of handwritten items and ensuring we have the most accurate article-level metadata for historic journals.

Books on display at the Joseph F. Cullman, 3rd Library of Natural History, Smithsonian Libraries. Image Credit: Nicole Kearney.

A highlight of my visit was seeing the rare books in the Cullman Library of Natural History. I had of course perused the digital versions of these treasures online (on BHL), but it was awe-inspiring to see them in the flesh and to listen to their Curator Leslie Overstreet speak so passionately about their history. I also particularly enjoyed seeing the Once There Were Billions exhibit, having read so much about it on the BHL blog. I took home origami versions of Martha (the last passenger pigeon) for my children and work colleagues so we too could #FoldtheFlock.

My visit coincided with that of Professor Ian Owens, Director of Science at the Natural History Museum, London. In his presentation to Smithsonian staff, he emphasized the contribution BHL has made to our understanding of global biodiversity. To make his point, he showed the illustration from the first published description of the Platypus from The Naturalist's Miscellany, Vol. 10, George Shaw, 1799, a publication contributed to BHL by Museum Victoria. I was also proud to hear him mention the digitization and transcription initiatives of our funding partner, the Atlas of Living Australia.

Bone Hall, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Image Credit: Nicole Kearney.

I had been to Washington, D.C. only once before, when I was fifteen. A highlight of that visit was the Bone Hall in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. I was fascinated by the variety of skeletons and the way they had been arranged to demonstrate form and function. I went on to become a zoologist, specializing in science communication. I still think this display is one of the best I’ve seen, and I was thrilled to find it relatively unchanged on my return visit – twenty-three years later!

It was wonderful to meet the dedicated people who keep BHL running so smoothly, and I am most grateful for the time they spent with me, answering questions, walking me though procedures and making me feel so welcome. Now that I’m home, we’ve resumed our communication via email, but I can now picture the friendly faces that sent them. I hope our paths will cross again soon.

BHL staff with Nicole Kearney. Back Row, Left to Right: Martin Kalfatovic (BHL Program Director), Bianca Crowley (BHL Digital Collections Manager), Julia Blase (Field Book Project Manager), Nicole Kearney (Coordinator, BHL Australia, Museum Victoria), Carolyn Sheffield (BHL Program Manager). Front Row, Left to Right: Jacqueline Chapman (Smithsonian Libraries Digital Collections Librarian), Grace Costantino (BHL Outreach and Communication Manager). Image Credit: Nicole Kearney.

From our end here in Australia, the BHL team at Museum Victoria have recently been focusing on the digitization of rare books relating to Antarctic exploration, including a number donated by local philanthropist Sir Thomas Ramsay. We have also continued to digitize works on Australian fauna. A particularly significant recent addition to BHL was A synopsis of the birds of Australia, and the adjacent Islands by John Gould. This work was issued to scope interest in what eventuated in one of his most celebrated works, The Birds of Australia.

Ross, James Clark. A voyage of discovery and research in the southern and Antarctic regions, during the years 1839-43. v. 1 (1847). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46551029. Digitized by Museum Victoria.

Explore the books in the BHL Australia Collection today.

Nicole Kearney
Coordinator | Biodiversity Heritage Library Australia
Museum Victoria

Georgiana Molloy (1805-1843) Botanist, Western Australia

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Guest Post by Bernice Barry. www.georgianamolloy.com.

Georgiana Molloy, 1829 © Mike Rumble. With permission of Mrs Dorothy Margaret Blaasch née Richardson-Bunbury.

Georgiana Molloy arrived in the Swan River Colony (now Perth, Western Australia) in 1830 and was among the small group of British colonists who founded the settlement of Augusta in the far southwest. Today, she’s remembered as the first internationally successful female botanist in Western Australia.

Specimens from two of her collections, including Type specimens, are archived in Kew Herbarium and Cambridge University Herbarium. Some of her letters and some diaries have also survived, held at the Cumbria Archive Centre in Carlisle UK and the JS Battye Library in Perth WA.

Georgiana Molloy specimens, Kew Herbarium © Mike Rumble.

Researchers unable to access these documents first-hand have been able to view some sources online for several years but things are changing. Libraries, herbaria and museums are increasingly digitizing new material as they acquire it. Other archives like the Biodiversity Heritage Library are making digital images of sources previously only available as microfilm or hard copy. Not only are many new items available now on a computer screen anywhere in the world, allowing you to look closely at a picture or photograph and transcribe from an original document, but also the sources are searchable. You don’t just have to search the Web for something you’re looking for in particular; using careful search techniques, you can find new sources you didn’t even know about.

The botanical work of Georgiana Molloy comes to life vividly through the images that are now available. Combining the content of her diaries/letters with online sources makes it possible to trace some of her specimens from the day she collected them in the bush, through their journey from collector to collector, and on to their current resting place in a herbarium.

Georgiana grew up in the north of England near the Scottish border, and like other girls in her social circle, she collected dried flowers and enjoyed gardening. In 1838, her amateur involvement, already remarkably accomplished, was recognized when collector Captain James Mangles RN asked her to send him specimens of Western Australian indigenous plants. She was only collecting for Mangles for the last six years of her life and taught herself the necessary skills from books - and trial and error - but the specimens she sent to England were of superior quality to those of experienced male collectors doing the same, including James Drummond who was 'government naturalist' in Perth until 1832. Her expertise was recognized by the most eminent botanists and growers of the time.

Mangles sent Georgiana’s specimens to (among others) Dr. John Lindley, Professor of Botany at University College, London, Joseph Paxton, head gardener of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth House, the Royal Horticultural Society and the Baumann brothers of Bollwiller in France. He also sent her seeds to successful nurserymen including George Loddiges, known for the orchids he grew in a huge hothouse.

Lindley was fascinated by the flora of Australia and the orchids in particular. In 1838 he was about to write a new article on the topic and was looking for perfect specimens. The selection Mangles sent from Mrs. Molloy didn’t disappoint.

'Your friend Mrs. Molloy is really the most charming personage in all South Australia & you the most fortunate man to have such a correspondent.  
That many of her plants are beautiful you can see for yourself & I am delighted to add that many of the best are quite new. I have marked many with a X.' i 

Paxton’s opinion was the same. He said her collection was 'collectively, the best and contains more good things than I have before received from that interesting part of the world' and described her 'important collection of seeds' as 'far superior to any we have received at Chatsworth,' with many new and 'splendid things in the hortus siccus.' ii

Chorizema varium. Paxton's Magazine of botany and register of flowering plants. V. 6, (1840). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48267230.

Georgiana’s life as a settler was one of hardship and tragedy, and for most of her 13 years in the colony she was nursing a baby. Her days were filled with farm work and domestic jobs from before dawn until late into the night, and yet she always found time for her botanical passion. A medical condition meant that she risked her life with the birth of each baby and soon after her seventh child was born she died, still desperately longing to successfully collect and send the seeds of Nuytsia floribunda and Kingia australis to Mangles. She was thirty-seven.

Nuytsia floribunda, Busselton WA © Mike Rumble.

Kingia Australis, Molloy Island, WA © Mike Rumble.

Nuytsia floribunda. Appendix to the first twenty-three volumes of Edwards's botanical register. (1839). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6014085.

In her last years, she was referred to in several botanical and horticultural publications, including three mentions in the 'Notices of new plants' in Lindley’s very successful Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony.

Appendix to the first twenty-three volumes of Edwards's botanical register : consisting of a completealphabetical and systematical index of names, synomymes and matter, adjusted to thepresent stateof systematical botany, together with a sketch of the vegetation of the Swan River colony ... / 

He wrote that Mrs. Molloy was'a lady enthusiastically attached to the Botany of this remote region,' collector of Pultanaea brachytropis, a 'pretty little greenhouse shrub from Port Augusta,'Euthales macrophylla, 'a greenhouse perennial of the easiest culture,' and Eucalyptus calophylla, 'a beautiful plant.' Even though the professor wrote that her 'zeal in the pursuit of Botany has brought us acquainted with many of the plants of that little known part of the world,' her name was not included in his list of acknowledgements.

Mangles received recognition for Georgiana’s Pentandria monogynia in the Floricultural Cabinet and Florists’ Magazine 1841 but she was referred to as just 'a lady.'

Euthales macrophylla. Edwards's botanical register. v. 27 (1841). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6580583.

The botanist George Bentham later acquired Georgiana’s collection from Lindley and deposited it with Kew when he took up office in 1854. His Flora australiensis was extremely successful, with thanks to Lindley (page 9) and Drummond (Page 10) but not Georgiana Molloy.

The online catalogues at Kew and Cambridge can be searched for 'Molloy' as 'collector' for digital photographs that reveal her skill and artistry. The most recently acquired Molloy journals at the JS Battye Library, partly written by Georgiana, are available online as images.

Although there were requests for plants to be named for her before and just after she died, she did not receive formal recognition as a botanist. The graceful, pink Boronia molloyae now bears her name.

Boronia molloyae© Mike Rumble.
Boronia molloyae. Curtis's botanical magazine. v. 103 (1877). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/464860.

You can learn more about Georgiana Molloy on these resources from Bernice Barry:


i.  Letter books of James Mangles. 1839. JS Battye Library ACC 479A
ii.  Ibid.

Guest Post by Bernice Barry. www.georgianamolloy.com.

What Makes a Citizen Science Project Successful?

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BHL supports a variety of crowdsourcing, or citizen science, initiatives that allow our community to help enhance our data, making it easier for scientists, researchers, educators, students, and others around the world to discover BHL content and use it to support scientific, conservation, and historical research. These initiatives include Flickr image tagging, transcription, image description via Science Gossip, and games that help improve our OCR.

But what motivates a citizen scientist to volunteer their time on a crowdsourcing project? How do they discover new projects or get support while tackling a challenging question? What can we do to keep our communities engaged and interested in our projects?

These are questions that any institution or organization that supports crowdsourcing activities might ask. Here at BHL, we figured the best way to get some answers was to ask our citizen scientists. We decided to start with one of our most dedicated volunteers, Siobhan Leachman.

Siobhan Leachman.

Siobhan lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She initially trained as a lawyer, but became interested in crowdsourcing and citizen science after she decided to stay home to raise her children. About two years ago, her sister, who works in a museum, introduced her to the Smithsonian Transcription Center, which offered just the sort of challenge that Siobhan was looking for.

At the time, the Transcription Center was still in its beta phase, and at first, Siobhan's activity in the project was occasional. Then, Vernon Bailey's field books were added to the site, and that all changed.

"I became hooked," Siobhan enthused. "I helped transcribe the field book in about three days. I loved his spare writing style, his drawings and occasional lyrical prose mixed in with unfamiliar North American species names that forced me to investigate further and in turn learn about various birds and animals. His writing was also quite an intellectual puzzle that I found fun to solve."

"JOURNAL KEPT BY BAILEY ON FIELD TRIP TO WYOMING AND NEW MEXICO, MARCH 15-JUNE 1906." Smithsonian Institution Archives. Smithsonian Transcription Center. https://transcription.si.edu/project/6656.

For the next six months, Siobhan worked exclusively on the Transcription Center. The variety of projects (including bumblebee labels, field books, and astronomy logbooks), the inviting and lively conversations among participants on social media, and the opportunity to provide input on improvements to the site (which was still in its beta phase), continually sparked her interest and nurtured a sense of community and teamwork.

Then one day, an "unassuming log book on Cacti written by Joseph Nelson Rose," led Siobhan to expand her crowdsourcing activities. The log book included a list of people who collected specimens for Rose, and Siobhan was surprised at how many women were listed. Research on one of them, Charlotte Cortlandt Ellis, led her to the JSTOR Global Plants database, where the record for Ellis was lacking a death date. Siobhan emailed JSTOR with the information, the database was updated, and the Transcription Center, delighted by the links and connections that the transcription projects were inspiring, highlighted the work in a blog post.

Rose's log book, containing mention of Charlotte Cortlandt Ellis. ROSE, CACTI, 1909 - 1917. Smithsonian Institution Archives. Smithsonian Transcription Center. https://transcription.si.edu/project/6712.

"I found this positive reinforcement very gratifying and inspiring," explains Siobhan. "I continued to research other women listed in the project and in the process started to realize that these amazing botanists were frequently overlooked. I also realized that few if any had a presence or mention in one of my main 'go to' sources of information – Wikipedia. So I began the journey of learning how to edit Wikipedia by focusing on writing articles about women I discovered via this project [see Siobhan's articles on Charlotte Cortlandt Ellis and Rose E Collom]."

It was social media that introduced Siobhan to BHL. By following the Transcription Center on twitter (@TranscribeSI), Siobhan became aware that BHL was seeking volunteers to add species name tags to images in Flickr, and that these tagged images would be added to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). She frequently used EOL to research species names when transcribing field books, and she knew that many species pages lacked images. She realized that, by tagging BHL images, should could help enhance one of her go-to sources for species information.

"My sister, Victoria, had been involved in machine tagging of the British Library images on Flickr and was able to get me up to speed as well as give me resources to assist in helping the BHL," explains Siobhan. "I started out being keen about the species shown but expanded my interest in the artists of the images. The quality of the scientific illustrations in these old texts amazed me, and again I fell into a world I knew little about but found absolutely fascinating as well as beautiful."

BHL Flickr image tagged by Siobhan. Alecedo vintsioides. Artist: Jean-Gabriel Prêtre. Oiseaux. 1839. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33110158.

In addition to the Transcription Center and BHL Flickr image tagging, Siobhan also participates in several Zooniverse projects, including BHL's Science Gossip, the Atlas of Living Australia's DigiVol transcription site, and several local Wellington initiatives, including Nature Watch, the New Zealand Garden Bird survey and the Great Kereru Count.

Social media is the primary way that Siobhan discovers new projects; she follows a variety of organizations on Twitter and Facebook. She also subscribes to mailing lists for institutions she's interested in, and relies on her network of fellow citizen scientists to alert her to new opportunities and developments.

Social media is also a critical source of support when she has questions. By reaching out to the organizations hosting the citizen science projects on Twitter or via the projects' forums, or asking for help via Twitter from her network of friends, Siobhan is able to get answers to even her toughest questions. As such, she emphasizes that developing a strong social media strategy is important for crowdsourcing success. The strategy should involve easy and frequent communication that encourages input from volunteers, welcomes new participants, and highlights volunteer contributions.  Furthermore, she believes institutions should facilitate community building and encourage conversations amongst participants. Such networks are not only vital sources of support, but can also be very rewarding.

"One of the most beneficial but unforeseen consequences of me volunteering for the Smithsonian Transcription Center are the friends I have made the world over who enjoy the same hobby as I do," affirms Siobhan. "They have and continue to enrich my life in numerous ways."

Forging and fostering friendships with like-minded people is a major motivator for Siobhan. But what else motivates her to participate (and keep contributing to) a particular citizen science project?

"I want to be entertained, interested and learn something new," divulges Siobhan. "I also want to feel like I’m contributing to the greater good and, in my small way, to the progression of science in general. I’ll keep working on a project if I believe it is worthwhile and interesting. I tend to be one of those people who finish what they start, so task completion is a motivation in itself.

"I also swap and change what I do depending on how I feel. Variety really is the spice of crowdsourcing. If I really want to concentrate and create, I’ll research and write a Wikipedia article. If I’m watching TV and want a relatively easy task, I’ll review bumblebee specimens. When I want to do something a bit more visually interesting, I’ll machine tag for BHL or contribute to projects like Science Gossip or Snapshot Serengeti on Zooniverse. And if I come across something that interests me such as a new artist or collector, I’ll head off researching and emailing organizations to hopefully make connections that aren’t easily obtained via a basic Google search."

Catharine Johnston. Wikipedia page created by Siobhan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharine_Johnston.

For Siobhan, the biggest challenge to crowdsourcing is the immensity of the task and the limited time she has to commit to projects. While she is energized by the discoveries made possible by unlocking the data contained in field books or specimen labels, and how connecting this often disparate data together allows for powerful new insights into questions related to, for example, extinction or invasive species, the reality of the amount of work to be done is daunting.

"So much to do, so little time, is my mantra," admits Siobhan.

But while there is much to do, the generosity of citizen scientists like Siobhan allows organizations the world over to consistently chip away at the work - work that may not ever get done otherwise.

We figured that someone who had dedicated so much time to citizen science initiatives probably had a pretty good idea of how they would design one if given the opportunity. So we asked Siobhan what her ideal project would be.

"My ideal citizen science project would entail everything that I do already but all in one place," reveals Siobhan. "It would be like a tail to nose (so to speak) project, where people could collect data on a particular subject, link that data, undertake research to obtain further data to link to the subject being crowdsourced, transcribe data relating to the subject, add images, maps etc. so that the end result would be the ability to have access to everything ever collected or known about the subject. And it would all be open access i.e. unrestricted access and unrestricted reuse for anyone, anywhere. This would result in artists, scientists, historians etc. the world over reusing the information to create new and wonderfully unforeseen ways of interacting with that knowledge. Now that I think about it, it sort of sounds similar to my ideal version of the Internet."

BHL Flickr image tagged by Siobhan. Artist: Plecotus auritus. Eleazar Albin. A natural history of birds. 1731-38. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41131200.

We think that sounds like a pretty awesome aspiration, and hope that, as we continue to forge new partnerships and collaborations, we can all work towards that connected, open, and discovery-inspiring vision. And what will be the key to the success of such a project? An environment that offers a variety of activities, acknowledges and positively reinforcing the work of its participants, and facilitates active communication and community development.

And that's the kind of environment we hope to create.

Learn more about how you can volunteer with BHL today.

BHL in Africa! Workshop & TDWG

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An international ensemble of biodiversity-minded professionals recently gathered in Nairobi, Kenya for two weeks of trainings and conferences. From 24-26 September, 2015, fifteen representatives from eleven institutions throughout South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda attended a BHL Africa training workshop at the National Museums of Kenya. Following the workshop, 28 September - 1 October, 2015, the TDWG Annual Conference was held at the Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club in Nairobi.

The BHL Africa Workshop was an opportunity to provide training and help build capacity amongst the current signatories of the BHL Africa MOU. The workshop was funded as part of the 2015 JRS Biodiversity Foundation grant, awarded to the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), to facilitate the growth of BHL Africa.

"This workshop is yet another example of the exciting strides the BHL Africa libraries are making towards digitizing and providing open access to their unique and important collections," said Robert Guralnick of the Board of Trustees, JRS Biodiversity Foundation.


Attendees at the BHL Africa Workshop at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi.

Representatives from the National Museums of Kenya, the University of Nairobi, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, the African Conservation Centre, the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, The Uganda Society, the National Library of Uganda, the South African National Aquatic Biodiversity Institute, the South African National Biodiversity Institute, and the University of Pretoria attended the workshop. Training was provided by four BHL representatives from the U.S., including BHL's Program Director, Martin Kalfatovic, Program Manager, Carolyn Sheffield, Outreach and Communication Manager, Grace Costantino, and Smithsonian Digital Collections Librarian, Jacqueline Chapman.

Trainings included an overview of the structure and governance of BHL; demoes of the BHL website and administrative functions; in-depth discussions about BHL collection scope, development, digitization and curation workflows, and metadata requirements; guidance on copyright and permissions issues; methods for communication and outreach collaboration; and intensive hands-on training for several BHL tools, including the issue tracking system Gemini and the digitization workflow tool Macaw. You can see a copy of the workshop presentation here.

BHL Africa workshop attendees enjoying the beautiful grounds at the National Museums of Kenya during a lunch break.

Chief among the discussion topics was a focus on building capacity within Africa and amongst current and future participating institutions. The goal of the workshop was to not only train attendees on the many aspects of BHL participation and workflows, but to ensure that attendees could return to their own institutions and provide training to their colleagues. There was also extensive discussion on the various ways that participants could share digitization equipment amongst institutions, ensuring efficiency and a responsible use of funds.

Following the workshop, Martin Kalfatovic, Anne-Lise Fourie (Head of BHL Africa and Assistant Director of SANBI Libraries), Carolyn Sheffield, and Jacqueline Chapman continued on to the TDWG 2015 conference where they were joined by BHL Technical Director William Ulate and the Vice Chair of the Global BHL Executive Committee, Dr. Jiri Frank.  On 1 October, BHL hosted a Symposium that provided updates on the BHL consortium in general; BHL Africa's JRS-funded capacity-building initiatives; BHL workshops; BHL projects; and a special guest, Prabhakar Rajagopal, who presented on the participation in the India Biodiversity Portal.  The session was well-attended with 137 conference attendees in the audience.

We are excited to see such wonderful progress from our colleagues in Africa, and look forward to the growth of BHL Africa content in and contributions to BHL.
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