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Live Webcast Today! Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the NHMLA Dino Lab

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The Dino Lab at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles County, is a busy place. The lab is responsible for cleaning and repairing the fossils uncovered by its paleontologists, sculpting missing bones to help fill in fossil gaps, and photographing and archiving the fossils held at the museum. It offers an incredible opportunity for museum visitors to get a true picture of what it takes to prepare a fossil for further research or display in a museum.

How would you like to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the Dino Lab at NHMLA? Well, you're in luck! Tune in today, October 16, 2015, at 3pm EST on the NHMLA Periscope account for a live tour of the Dino Lab as part of our Fossil Stories event. You'll get up close and personal with the specimens being worked on and the people who care for these incredible fossils.



To join, simply follow @NHMLA on Periscope (you'll then receive a notification via Periscope once the event is live) or follow @NHMLA or @BioDivLibrary on Twitter. We'll tweet out the link to the Periscope event on those accounts once it's live.

One of the highlights in the Dino Lab is a real T. rex toe bone that museum visitors can actually touch. The toe bone, approximately eight inches long, was collected in northeastern Montana in the 1960s.

The first partial skeleton of a T. rex was discovered by Barnum Brown, assistant curator of the American Museum of Natural History, in eastern Wyoming in 1900. Brown then found another partial skeleton in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana in 1902. H. F. Osborn described both skeletons in a 1905 paper, originally assigning the 1900 skeleton the name Dynamosaurus imperiosus. Within that same paper, he used the 1902 skeleton as the holotype to describe Tyrannosaurus rex. His paper also included a skeletal restoration of T. rex (by William D. Matthew, vertebrate paleontologists and curator at the American Museum of Natural History), the first reconstruction ever published. In 1906, Osborn realized that the D. imperiosus skeletal actually belonged to the same species as the T. rex, and he selected Tyrannosaurus rex as the valid name for the species.

First published reconstruction of the Tyrannosaurus rex.. Tyrannosaurus and other Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaurs. Bulletin of the AMNH ; v. 21, article 14. 1905. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/89582.

You can see the first publication about the T. rex in BHL, and be sure to tune in today, October 16, at 3pm EST on the NHMLA Periscope account to see the behind-the-scenes tour of the Dino Lab!



Mantell and the Armored Dinosaurs

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British geologist and paleontologist Gideon Mantell is famous for his contributions to the scientific discovery of dinosaurs. In 1825, he described and validly named the second dinosaur genus, Iguanodon. In 1833, he described another dinosaur, which was later used, along with Iguanodon and Megalosaurus, to define Dinosauria.

A gunpowder explosion at a quarry in Tilgate Forest, West Sussex, revealed a collection of about fifty fossil bone pieces that were acquired by Mantell in 1832. Mantell discovered that the pieces could be combined into a single, partially articulated skeleton, the most complete dinosaur skeleton known at the time. Mantell was at first inclined to attribute the fossils to his previously-named Iguanodon, but William Clift, the curator of the Royal College of Surgeons, doubted the identification, pointing out that several plates and spikes found amongst the fossils were likely body armor, thus indicating that this was a new species. Thus, Mantell decided to create a new genus for the specimen, naming it Hylaeosaurus.

Hylaeosaurus. Mantell, Gideon. The geology of the south-east of England. 1833. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48441272. Digitized by: Natural History Museum, London.

Mantell originally intended to publish the new name within a journal article, but was informed that the paper he had prepared was too long for publication. Rather than rewriting the paper, Mantell decided to publish a book on his fossil finds and include a chapter on Hylaeosauruswithin it. Within three weeks, Mantell compiled his notes on his fossil finds together into a single manuscript. Furthermore, being warned by Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, that new nomenclature conventions required that a full species name, rather than just a genus, were required for authorship recognition, Mantell gave his specimen the binomial Hylaeosaurus armatus. The description was published in 1833 within Mantell's book The Geology of the South-East of England.

Hylaeosaurus was the first ankylosaur (which include the majority of armored dinosaurs) to be scientifically named. Though additional Hylaeosaurus species were named over the years, Hylaeosaurus armatus is currently considered the only valid species in the genus.

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The Birth of Dinosaurs: Richard Owen and Dinosauria

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Humans have been encountering the fossilized remains of dinosaurs for millennia. The myth of the dragon, for instance, may be based on discoveries of dinosaur fossils. As an example, Chinese historian, Chang Qu mislabeled such a fossil as a dragon in the 4th century B.C.E.

The concept of dinosaurs as a group, however, occurred much more recently...in the nineteenth century, in fact.

The first published description of what is now known to be a dinosaur bone (but was thought to be the thighbone of a giant human at the time) occurred in the seventeenth century. The early nineteenth century saw the first scientifically named dinosaurs, including Megalosaurus and Iguanodon. But the relationship between these extinct giants - as dinosaurs - was not uncovered until the 1840s.

Iguanodon. Owen, Richard. History of British Fossil Reptiles. (1849-84). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31985623. Digitized by: Missouri Botanical Garden.

English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen conducted extensive research on fossils during his career. He is perhaps most famous for being the first person to introduce the concept of dinosaurs as a group.

The name Dinosauria is first published in Owen's Report on British Fossil Reptiles, which was published in 1842 as part of the Report from the 11th meeting (1841) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.  Owen used three genera to define his dinosaurs: the carnivorous Megalosaurus, the herbivorous Iguanodon, and armored Hylaeosaurus.

Megalosaurus. Owen, Richard. History of British Fossil Reptiles. (1849-84). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31985705. Digitized by: Missouri Botanical Garden.

Owen was fascinated by the specimens his peers had discovered. He examined William Buckland's Megalosaurus specimens at Oxford and Gideon Mantell's Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus specimens housed in the British Museum. From these, and examinations of other collections (most notably a sacrum from an Iguanodon in the collection of fossil collector William Devonshire Saull that likely first inspired Owen's discovery), Owen determined that these three animals shared unique anatomical features that united them together while also separating them from other known groups. It was the fusion of five vertebrae at the base of the spine, observed in some of the Megalosaurus and Iguanodon fossils that Owen consulted and inferred in the Hylaeosaurus fragments - a feature unknown in other reptiles - that fueled Owen's confidence in his new group.

Hylaeosaurus. Owen, Richard. History of British Fossil Reptiles. (1849-84). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31984756. Digitized by: Missouri Botanical Garden.

The realization of this relationship among these specimens was Owen's chief contribution to the field of Dinosaur research. It was a connection other paleontologists of the time had not uncovered. Thus, on the basis of this research and with the publication of his report in 1842, Richard Owen erected the clade Dinosauria and kindled a human love affair with dinosaurs that lasts to this day.

Owen's chief memoirs, particularly those relating to the relationship between reptiles and extinct forms, were republished as a connected series in his History of British Fossil Reptiles (4 vols. London 1849–1884).


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Uncovering the Truth about Fossil Feces: Buckland, Anning, and Coprolites

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When most people think about fossils, they generally think of body fossils, which are fossilized remains of parts of an organism's body. But there is another type of fossil: trace fossils. Trace fossils are geological records of biological activity, and they provide important insight into an animal's behavior.

One important trace fossil, which provides information about an animal's diet, is the coprolite. That's a fancy way of saying fossilized feces.

When coprolites were first discovered, they were identified as fossilized fir tree cones or bezoar stones. Bezoar stones were undigested masses found trapped in the gastrointestinal system, and were once believed to have magical properties, capable of neutralizing any poison. As an interesting aside, this claim was put to the test by surgeon Ambroise Paré in 1575. A cook caught stealing was sentenced to death by hanging, but at Paré's request, agreed to be poisoned instead and fed a bezoar in the hopes that it would prove to be an antidote. The cook died in agony seven hours later.

Coprolites. Buckland, William. Transactions of the Geological Society of London. ser. 2, v. 3 (1835).  http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/36239898. Digitized by the California Academy of Sciences.

William Buckland, famous for describing and validly naming the first dinosaur genus, Megalosaurus, had a theory about coprolites. He first became interested while studying cave deposits at Kirkdale. He suspected that the deposits that he found were actually preserved carnivore droppings, and even compared them with spotted hyena droppings in an attempt to prove his hypothesis.

In the mid-1820s, Buckland received the evidence he needed. Famous fossil-hunter Mary Anning provided Buckland with coprolites she discovered in the cliffs near her home in Lyme Regis, England. Anning's attention was drawn to these objects, as she usually discovered them within the ribs or near the pelvis of the ichthyosaur fossils she was discovering. She also noticed that, when the coprolites were broken open, they sometimes contained fossilized fish bones, scales, and the bones of smaller ichthyosaurs. Mary herself believed them to be fossilized feces.

Coprolites containing scales of fishes and undigested bones. Buckland, William. Transactions of the Geological Society of London. ser. 2, v. 3 (1835). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/36239900. Digitized by the California Academy of Sciences.

Buckland published his theory about the true nature of these fossils, and provided the name coprolite, in a paper which he read before the Geological Society of London in 1829 and was later published in the Society's Transactions in 1835. Buckland recognized Mary Anning by name, giving her credit for her discoveries and deductions.

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Illustrating Fossil Plants: The Enigmatic Artis

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Phytology is an historic term, not widely used today, for the study of plants. Antediluvian was a term much used by early paleontologists to describe the "time before the great Biblical flood." These two terms are necessary to understand the title of an important work in paleobotany: Antediluvian Phytology (1838), by Edmund Tyrell Artis.

The formal study of paleobotany has roots in 1828, when Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart, known as the Father of Paleobotany, published Histoire des végétaux fossiles. A decade after this publication, Artis' work was published. It was remarkable for including some the best paleobotanical illustrations published up to that time, describing many new-to-science species, and interpreting fossils through the lens of the individual that actually collected the fossils: Artis himself. At the time, many paleontologists obtained fossils from collectors, but did not collect themselves. Understanding the context in which a fossil is found, and the surrounding environment, can have important implications in the analysis and interpretation of the specimen.

Artis, Edmund Tyrell. Antediluvian Phytology. 1838. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39307886. Digitized by the California Academy of Sciences.

These accomplishments are even more remarkable considering the humble origins of Artis himself, which also contributes to much of the mystery surrounding him and his work.

Artis was the son of a carpenter, born in 1789 in the small village of Sweffling in Suffolk, England. After moving to London to work in the wine trade with his uncle, he opened a confectionary shop, where his work caught the eye of the Earl Fitzwilliam, who asked Milton to join his staff at Milton Hall near Castor. Artis proved very adept, and was promoted to House Steward within three years.

Artis often accompanied the Fitzwilliams on their visits to the other family property, Wentworth Woodhouse in south Yorkshire. The region boasted some of the most important coal mines in England, and Artis soon began collecting plant fossils from the area. He amassed a collection of between 1,000-1,500 plant fossils, some of which he described in his only publication, Antediluvian Phytology. The work included 24 illustrations, some based on his own paintings and the rest the work of leading natural history illustrator John Curtis.

Artis, Edmund Tyrell. Antediluvian Phytology. 1838. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39307868. Digitized by the California Academy of Sciences.

Artis and his publication are something of a mystery. For instance, it's unclear who paid for the publication of his work. There's no evidence of pre-subscriptions that could have funded the work, or that Fitzwilliam contributed funds to it. Artis himself is not likely to have been able to afford such a venture. Furthermore, Artis was evidently familiar with the relevant natural history literature of the day, but how he gained access to it is alsoa mystery. Artis also apparently had influential friends. He claimed to have met Georges Cuvier, and William Buckland sponsored Artis to become a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1824. How he met Buckland, or when he would have had occasion to meet Cuvier, are unknown.

Artis would later find an interest in archeology, becoming famous for his excavations of the Roman remains near Milton Hall. In 1847, he fell ill, possibly due to exposure to a harsh winter while excavating ruins in Northamptonshire. He died on Christmas Eve, 1847.

Artis, Edmund Tyrell. Antediluvian Phytology. 1838. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39307762. Digitized by the California Academy of Sciences.

Although much mystery still surrounds this enigmatic man, his contributions to the field of paleobotany are forever immortalized through his Antediluvian Phytology.


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Finishing #FossilFossick with #FossilStories

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On October 9, we challenged Smithsonian Transcription volunteers to transcribe the field notes of Ladd, Ward, and G. Arthur Cooper. See the details of the challenge here.

It took exactly three and a half days for volunteers to completely transcribe 9 sets of field notes totaling 252 pages. An average of 14 people contributed to each project. The range? 35 people co-opted our longest Cooper journal, while only 3 tackled his shortest 6 page journal.

Here’s what happened in the numbers:

  • 12 total projects completed in those days, including our 9 #FossilFossick Projects! 
  • 30 New volunteers! 
  • 252 pages completed - and 712 Pages total over the challenge dates! 
  • 3.5 Days from launch to completely transcribe and review the #FossilFossick field notes! 
  • Visits from 48 countries including Germany, Ecuador, Turkey, India, and New Zealand 

Sharing the Challenge 



Through 114 #FossilFossick Tweets and other communication, the #FossilFossick challenge gathered 192.7k impressions. The challenge announcement e-mail was opened by 1,895 people, who in total clicked on links 177 times. The update campaign e-mail sent 3 days later, pushing us through the last 29 pages, was opened by 1,121 people and resulted in 101 link clicks.

Surfacing Connections 


We also asked volunteers to help us track correspondents, specimens, and locations. This part of the challenge is on-going! You can still help by reading the completed field notes (perhaps by downloading the PDF) and entering details in this Google Spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/FossilFossick

Finds From #FossilFossick Hunters 


What did volunteers find interesting about this challenge? Handwriting to buddies to technology and the real personalities behind scientific field work. First, our volunteers were more than amused by Harry Ladd’s adventures and his playful personality, as well as his colorful pals.

Other volunteers tried to determine whether Ward took a street car, golf cart, or automobile from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.

Still others shared information to help one another tackle the challenge - great collaboration even from the start of the event!

What’s Next? 


A total success deserves a totally fantastic reward: be sure to tune into the behind-the-scenes tour of Smithsonian fossil collections with Dr. Nicholas Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, via the BHL Periscope on October 26 as a reward for the successful completion of the challenge. More details to come on Twitter and Facebook.

You can explore the field notes in BHL:



You can also read all of the completed #FossilFossick projects by visiting the project pages with these links and downloading the PDFs:


Thanks again to all of our wonderful volunteers who contributed to this challenge! When we collaborate for citizen science, everyone wins!

Dr. Meghan Ferriter
Project Coordinator
Smithsonian Transcription Center

From the Experts: Recommended Fossil Books!

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We hope you've been enjoying the fossil-mania this week with Fossil Stories! We've been exploring the fascinating history of paleontology, learning some great fossil facts, and hearing from experts (via a series of live webcasts) about current fossil research.

Our posts have demonstrated the important role that natural history publications have played in the history of paleontology. These works disseminated new research and ideas, documented the evolution of human knowledge about fossils and their origins, and recorded the first scientific descriptions of many ancient creatures.

But this literature is important not just for the historical information it provides. It is also highly relevant to modern paleontological research.

"Traditional ways of knowing about the fossil record are still relevant for modern questions in paleontology because specimens matter," explains Dr. Nicholas D. Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. "Many important fossils were intially described and published in monographic, folio formats, and in many cases, those descriptions can be still be used 100-150 years later. I use them all the time."

And indeed he does. During a recent trip to Argentina, Dr. Pyenson was able to compare specimens in the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales with illustrations of those specimens in BHL alongside 3D scans of the related cetacean.

Comparing specimens to digitized literature and 3D scans. Dr. Nicholas D. Pyenson conducting research at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales. Photo by Nicholas D. Pyenson, via Twitter: https://twitter.com/PyensonLab/status/647111438222389248.

The importance of historic literature to modern fossil research is echoed by those in the field of paleobotany as well.

"Just as in research on living plant and animal biodiversity, research on the fossil record of plants and animals depends crucially on the published literature," emphasizes Dr. Patrick Herendeen, Director of Systematics and Evolutionary Biology at the Chicago Botanic Garden. "Plant systematics literature goes back hundreds of years, and having access to this literature is essential for ongoing research in plant taxonomy and systematics. This is equally true for paleobotany."

Knowing that historic literature is so important to modern paleontological work, we asked paleontologists at several BHL partner institutions to share some of their favorite historic publications with us. We think the results constitute a pretty awesome Recommended Reading List for Paleontology Enthusiasts!

Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues 
Chair, Department of Paleobiology. Curator of Fossil Vertebrates.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

"Not surprisingly, my favorite early book on paleontology is Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles de quadrupèdes by G. Cuvier (first published in 1812, with three later editions). Not only did it found the scientific study of fossil vertebrates but it is written in a clear yet elegant style but that makes it a pleasure to read. Cuvier did not just describe fossils but tried to interpret their anatomy in functional terms. As a foundational work in the field, it will always be relevant to researchers interested in the fossil record of backboned animals."

Cuvier, Georges. Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles de quadrupèdes. v. 3 (1812). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40078532. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Dr. Maria A. Gandolfo 
Senior Researcher, L.H. Bailey Hortorium, Plant Biology Section 
School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University

Dr. Gandolfo's favorite early paleobotany book is Ancient Plants, written by Mary C. Stopes in 1910. When asked why it is her favorite, Dr. Gandolfo referred to a quote from the book: "The lore of the plants which have successively clothed this ancient earth during the thousands of centuries before men appeared is generally ignored or tossed on one side with a contemptuous comment on the dullness and 'dryness' of fossil botany." According to Dr. Gandolfo, "This book was written in 1910 and even after 105 years of incredible advances in the field of Paleobotany, this sentence still reflects what people feels about Paleobotany."

Dr. Peter J. Makovicky
Department Chair and Associate Curator, Department of Geology
The Field Museum

The Ceratopsia are a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period. They include such iconic genera as Triceratops and Montanoceratops. The name Ceratopsia was coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1890, and in 1907 he, along with John B. Hatcher and Richard S. Lull, published a monograph on the group, entitled The Ceratopsia. According to Dr. Makovicky, this work is one of his favorites and a classic amongst the pre-1923 published materials.

The Ceratopsia. 1907. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39875988. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Dr. William A. DiMichele 
Research Paleontologist and Curator 
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Dr. DiMichele's favorite historic paleontology work is Description of the Coal Flora of the Carboniferous Formation in Pennsylvania and Throughout the United States, by Leo Lesquereux (1879-80). According to Dr. DiMichele, "This is the foundational book/atlas on American Carboniferous (coal age) floras and contains detailed descriptions and illustrations of many of the species that occur commonly in coal fields of the eastern and midwestern US. Many of the species that occur in the rocks I study were first described in this set of volumes, so the books remain a primary source of information to which I turn regularly."

Lesquereux, Leo. Description of the coal flora of the Carboniferous formation in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States. Atlas (1879). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46854192. Digitized by Wellesley College Library.

Dr. Karl J. Niklas 
The Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology 
Cornell University

Dr. Niklas' favorite historic paleontological work is The Origin of a Land Flora (1908) written by F. O. Bower. According to Dr. Niklas, "This book presents the first conceptualization of the evolution of 'The Alternation of Generations' in the land plants. I have worked on the evolution of plant body plans and the evolution of plant life cycles," thus making this work particularly relevant to Dr. Niklas' research.

Bower, F.O. The Origin of Land Flora. (1908). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1312200. Digitized by the MBLWHOI Library.

Dr. Nicholas D. Pyenson
Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Dr. Pyenson's favorite historic paleontology book is Ostéographie des cétacés vivants et fossiles (1868-79), by Pierre Joseph Beneden and Paul Gervais. "This work showcased specimens and species that no one had really seen outside of the areas where the specimens were collected," explains Dr. Pyenson. "It's a catalog of the world's whales, and the authors didn't discriminate between fossil and modern species. It's cool that these were integrated together into one work this early on, before it was fashionable to do so."

Modern whale skulls alongside fossil skulls. "You can tell which are the fossil skulls by the condition of the specimens," explains Dr. Pyenson. Ostéographie des cétacés vivants et fossiles. (1869-79). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41066967. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Thanks to all of our experts for sharing their favorite historic publications with us! We hope you've enjoyed our series of blog posts this week highlighting key works in the history of paleontology. Can't get enough of the fossil publications? Then check out other great works in the BHL Fossil Stories digital book collection.

From Scarborough to Svjatoj Nos: BHL's latest in-copyright additions

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What do the Scarborough District, tigers, Socieded Cientifica Argentina, Auckland Institute and Museum, birds and the Svjatoj Nos wetlands have in common?

Actually not much…

…except that they are the newest in-copyright additions to the BHL collection!

If you still think that BHL is strictly about legacy literature, think again. Although still a very small portion of our collection, in-copyright titles now total over 400 from 170 licensors. Please see our Permissions page to learn more about the in-copyright content in our collection.

Where possible, BHL acquires permission in the form of a signed license agreement from copyright holders to digitize post-1922 publications. These publications are available for open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. Users are welcome to reuse the in-copyright content in BHL so long as they adhere to the terms of the CC license, meaning:

  • you attribute the content to the copyright holder,
  • use the content for non-commercial purposes such as educational or personal use
  • share the content under the same license (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Our latest (bio)diverse mix of titles hails from all over the world:

The Natural History of the Scarborough District
Since 1889, the Scarborough Field Naturalists' Society has encouraged the organization of "amateur naturalists' with interests throughout the spectrum of natural history." BHL is pleased to include this publication in our collection as we feel we are the perfect place for these types of smaller scholarly society publications.

Tracking tigers : a review of the status of tiger, Asian elephant, gaur, and banteng in Vietnam, Lao, Cambodia, and Yunnan (China), with recommendations for future conservation action by Will Duckworth and Simon Hedges (1998)
In 1998 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indochina programme commissioned a report on the status of large mammals. "It was an incredible piece of work and represents an expertly pieced together compilation of data and information from every source possible" explains Michael Baltzer, Director of the WWF Tigers Alive Initiative. As the first in-copyright WWF publication to become a part of the BHL collection, we hope this is a good sign for additional WWF publications to come.

Anales de la Sociedad Cientifica Argentina
A pioneering institution for scientific study in Argentina since 1872, the Sociedad Cientifica Argentina has published its Anales for over 130 years. BHL is thrilled to be able to provide this complete publication through the present day. Digitization of the Anales is underway and should be available shortly.

Bulletin of the Auckland Institute and Museum and Poirieria
The Auckland Museum Institute dates back to 1867 when it assumed the management of the Auckland Museum and became the regional representative of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Its Bulletin covers a spectrum of topics related to natural and human history. The Auckland Shell Club was formed in 1931 as a section of the Auckland Museum Institute, dedicated to "all things molluscan, ie: shell collecting (recent and fossil), conchology and malacology (study of shells and shellfish), and molluscan ecology and conservation." These publications will be available in BHL soon.

Ornithological Society of Turkey Bird reports and Ornithological Society of Turkey Bulletins 
In 1978, the Ornithological Society of the Middle East (OSME) formed as a successor to the Ornithological Society of Turkey. Its purpose is to promote research and address conservation issues for birds in the region between, "between Europe, China and the Horn of Africa on two major migration flyways crossing Central Asia’s wind-swept steppes, the Caucasus’s towering mountains, Arabia’s wide arid deserts and the tropical seas of the Indian Ocean." Previously, the OSME gave permission for BHL to include Sandgrouse and its Bulletin in our collection. It has now added 2 more titles, published under its former name. Please stay tuned for digital copies of the Bird reports and Bulletins to appear in the coming weeks.

Ecology of the Svjatoj Nos wetlands, Lake Baikal by J. Mlíkovský & P. Stýblo (eds.)
These stunning wetlands are located on the Kola Peninsula along one of the most northeastern coasts in Russia. BHL is pleased to make this work available in our collection soon.







Digitization is in progress for these titles and you can see them appearing via our recent additions list.

Want to see more in-copyright content in BHL? Let us know what you’d like to see!

-Bianca Crowley, BHL Digital Collections Manager

Eerie Anatomy: Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica

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This post originally published on the Smithsonian Libraries blog Unbound. See it here.

Erin Rushing
Outreach Librarian
Smithsonian Libraries

Halloween is quickly approaching and with it comes the traditional decorations of bats, pumpkins, ghosts and of course, skeletons. Back in the 1500's, one man changed the way the medical world saw the skeletal and muscular systems of the human body. That man, Andreas Vesalius, illustrated anatomical features in his De humani corporis fabrica (On the structure of the human body) in a way never before seen. Although the pages below may seem pretty gruesome, they come from one of the most influential anatomy books of all time.

Portrait of Vesalius from De humani corporis fabrica, 1543. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48714916.

Born in Brussels in 1514, Andreas Vesalius came from a family of doctors and apothecaries. When he became a physician himself and began teaching medical school in the 1530's, most of the standard texts were based on animal dissections and the observations of an ancient Roman doctor named Galen. Vesalius took the unconventional step of performing dissections live in front of his medical students and using human bodies, in some cases those of convicted criminals.

Standing figure from De humani corporis fabrica, 1543. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48715058.

In 1543, 29 year old Vesalius published De humani corporis fabrica with elaborate wood-cut illustrations of human dissections. But these bodies weren't just lying still, as if on a mortuary slab. They were depicted in classical contrapposto. In many instances, layers of tissue artfully fall away to reveal the muscles and ligaments which lie beneath. Despite the artistic quality, the book is considered one of the first anatomical works, accurately representing and describing various systems in the body.

Vesalius gave detailed notes to the printer, helping to assure that the descriptive text matched the appropriate figure and that the artistic style of the plates was preserved. The printer, Johannes Oporinus, felt that these notes were so important that he included them in the publication itself (see “Printer’s Note to the Reader” here: http://vesalius.northwestern.edu/books/FA.b.html). In the text of the book, Vesalius not only describes the systems of the body, but also his recommendations for obtaining skeletons, putting them together and dissecting cadavers.

Standing figure from De humani corporis fabrica, 1543. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48715045.

The so-called “Muscle Men” of the book are depicted on a background that is thought to be Padua, where Vesalius taught medicine. If pieced together, the plates’ backgrounds form a full landscape. Vesalius dedicated the book to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and later went to work as the Emperor’s personal physician.

You can learn more about Vesalius and the history of anatomy books during a live tour in the Smithsonian's Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology via Periscope on Thursday, October 29th at 1pm (EST). Head of Special Collections, Lilla Vekerdy, will highlight a few of the rare books, including Vesalius', that helped transform the way that medical professions studied the human body. 


If you’d like to explore more of De humani corporis fabric on your own, check out the recently-added copy from the Getty Research Institute (via the Internet Archive) in BHL.

We hope you'll join us on Oct. 29 for the Eerie Anatomy Periscope. Make no bones about it, it will be a ghoulishly good time!

Happy Retirement to Chris Mills!

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This week, Chris Mills, Head of Library, Art, and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, celebrates his retirement. Chris has served as the Head of the Library at Kew since 2006, before which he served as the Head of Collections and Services at the Natural History Museum, London.

The Library, Art and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has the distinction of being one of BHL's 10 founding institutions, and now represents one of BHL's 16 Member Libraries. Chris has served as Kew's representative to BHL since its beginning, and has been an important member of BHL's community.

"Chris made sure that Kew Gardens was a founding member of the Biodiversity Heritage Library and has continued faithful representation as a valued colleague on the BHL Members Council," emphasized Dr. Nancy Gwinn, Chair of the BHL Executive Committee and Director of the Smithsonian Libraries. "His wisdom and good humor will be missed!"

One of the most important botanical reference sources in the world, Kew's Library, Art and Archives contains more than half a million items, including books, botanical illustrations, photographs, letters and manuscripts, periodicals, biographies and maps. From this impressive collection, the Library has contributed over 13,000 pages to BHL to date, thanks in large part to Chris' leadership.

"We have all benefited widely by the expertise and humor that Chris has brought to BHL," stated Martin R. Kalfatovic, BHL Program Director and Associate Director, Digital Services Division, at the Smithsonian Libraries. "His personal contributions and support of Kew’s participation in the BHL will be greatly missed.”

Jane Smith, Head of Library and Archives at the Natural History Museum, London and Secretary of the BHL Executive Committee, also expressed her appreciation of Chris' contributions to the program. "Chris’s wit, lovely sense of fun and kindness makes him a good companion," she said. "His considerable knowledge, expertise and understanding of natural history collections, particularly of botanical art, and good judgement has made him a valued colleague."

David Iggulden, Electronic Resources Manager at the Library, Art, and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, will serve as the Kew Member Representative to BHL following Chris' retirement. David has long represented Kew on the BHL Staff Committee, making him highly qualified to now represent the Library on the Members Council.

“Chris first introduced me to BHL when I started at Kew in 2007," remembers David. "He explained how he and a few colleagues had come up with the idea originally for a joint union catalogue of their library resources which could be searched online. But as time and technology moved on, they decided that this wasn’t enough and that perhaps instead digitisation of the collections was the way to go. The aim then (as now) was to provide the digitised content free of charge to all, online via a web portal.

"Chris truly inspired me about BHL with his highly infectious enthusiasm for the resource and its aims. He quietly helped me to further develop my professional interest in BHL over the years and always supported our involvement even when times were tough. In 2009 I was delighted to deputise for Chris at the Institutional Council meeting in Boston, representing Kew in the discussions as BHL began to go global. After this he fully supported me to attend the BHL Life and Literature conference in 2011. This incredible event uncovered the huge potential for the BHL to further develop its services and content in response to the challenges of working with biodiversity literature.  
"Chris will be sorely missed but I very much hope to continue Kew’s involvement with BHL and progress towards Chris’s and the other founder members’ original vision for this ambitious resource.”

While he will indeed be greatly missed, we are excited to celebrate with Chris as he begins this next chapter in his life. We wish him happiness and a wonderful retirement, and extend a warm and hearty thanks for all of his wonderful contributions to BHL. We look forward to the many wonderful contributions to BHL still to come from Kew under David's able leadership.

Thank you, Chris, and Happy Retirement, from your Family at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Using Art to Document Species: Cramer and the Lepidoptera

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How could you make a visual record of a collection before the advent of photography? Through illustrations, of course. It was a desire to produce just such a record that prompted the creation of the magnificent plates accompanying De uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen, Asia, Africa en America (1779-1782), by Pieter Cramer, which has been digitized for BHL by Mann Library, Cornell University.

De uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen, Asia, Africa en America. 1779-1782. Digitized by Mann Library, Cornell University. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42111657. 

Pieter Cramer was a wealthy linen and wool merchant from Amsterdam. Born in 1721, he had a keen interest in natural history - particularly Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). Through purchase and trade, Cramer amassed a large collection of Lepidoptera specimens from Suriname, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), Indonesia, North America, Africa, and Asia. Cramer hired Amsterdam artist Gerrit Wartenaar to illustrate his collection in order to make a permanent record of it. The resulting hand-colored plates were so magnificent that Cramer was encouraged to publish them. He did so via De uitlandsche kapellen, which includes 400 plates featuring 1,658 moth and butterfly species, each accompanied by a brief description of the antennal shape and wing pattern. The plates and text were published in thirty-four parts between 1779-82, with one issue being sent out to a list of subscribers every three months. The final work consists of four volumes.

De uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen, Asia, Africa en America. 1779-1782. Digitized by Mann Library, Cornell University. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42111331.

Sadly, Cramer died of a fever in 1776, after only the first volume of the work had been published. His nephew and business partner, Anthony Wellemzoon van Rensselaar, enlisted the help of Caspar Stoll (who had been involved in the production of the first volume) to complete the final volumes. Stoll wrote most of the text for volume four, and, between 1787-90, published a supplement to the work that included forty-two plates of 250 additional species.

De uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen, Asia, Africa en America. 1779-1782. Digitized by Mann Library, Cornell University. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42111247.

De uitlandsche kapellenis important for a number of reasons. It depicts each species at life-size and illustrates both the upper and lower wings for each. It was also the first treatise on Lepidoptera to use the newly-introduced classification system from Carl Linnaeus. Cramer and Stoll assigned each butterfly and moth to one of the three then-existing Lepidopteran genera (designated by Linnaeus) - today there are thousands of genera for butterflies and moths. In providing scientific names to the species, they not only used any existing binomials for the specimens included in the work, but, as many of the species had not yet been named, they also assigned a name and provided the first formal scientific description for many species depicted in the volumes. As a result, De uitlandsche kapellen contains hundreds of "original descriptions" and as such is still integral to the work of scientists today.

De uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen, Asia, Africa en America. 1779-1782. Digitized by Mann Library, Cornell University. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42111073.

You can explore De uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen, Asia, Africa en America (1779-1782), by Pieter Cramer, for free in BHL, digitized by Mann Library, Cornell University Library. You can view the illustrations in this work on Flickr: Pts. 1-2 | Pts. 3-4.

Source: James, Miller. "The Volumes of Cramer and Stoll: A Timeless Contribution to the Science of Butterflies and Moths."Natural Histories. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 2012. 57-58. Print.

BHL receives the Internet Archive's Internet Heroes award at the 2015 Library Leaders' Forum

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Photo credit: Brad Shirakawa, Internet Archive
The Biodiversity Heritage Library was honored to receive the Internet Archive's Internet Heroes award at the 2015 Library Leaders' Forum in San Francisco, 21-23 October 2015. Hosted by Brewster Kahle and Wendy Hanamura, the Leaders' Forum was attended by Internet Archive partners from across the world of cultural heritage institutions. The theme of the meeting, "Building Libraries Together," drew together the many threads of activities that the Internet Archive has fostered for over ten years that create an open, participatory virtual library of books, music, websites, television, and more.

Photo credit: Brad Shirakawa
Internet Archive
Earlier during the multi-day event, John Perry Barlow, lyricist of the Grateful Dead, founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and general Internet visionary (see, e.g. his "Economy of Ideas" published in Wired Magazine in 1994) accepted from Brewster Kahle the "Internet Archive Hero Award to the Grateful Dead–Pioneers in Sharing."

Accepting the award on behalf of the past, present and future hard working contributors to the success of the Biodiversity Heritage Library were Martin R. Kalfatovic (BHL Program Director), Carolyn Sheffield (BHL Program Manager), Keri Thompson (Smithsonian Libraries), and BHL Founding Technical Director, Chris Freeland (Washington University).

Photo credit: Brad Shirakawa
Internet Archive
The two-day meeting also provided participants the opportunity to engage in discussion with Internet Archive staff and colleagues in the areas of sustainability, copyright, access, and technology. Attendees had an opportunity to try out the new Table Top Scribe, hear about and provide input into Internet Archive's goals, and learn about some innovative pilot projects under development at Archive Lab including the IIIF viewer and new search algorithms.



Biodiversity Heritage Library
Internet Archive Hero Award 2015

The Australian Lepidoptera Heritage

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Have you ever stumbled across a caterpillar and wondered what kind of adult moth or butterfly it would metamorphose into?

Short of catching the caterpillar and actually observing what adult it becomes, this answer might be harder to come by than you might think. Most taxonomy and identification has been performed on the adults of various Lepidopteran species, and there are still many species whose caterpillar forms are not readily known.

This is particularly true for many Australian species whose early life stages remain a scientific mystery.

Dr. Don Herbison-Evans hopes to shed some light on these Australian larval mysteries through the website Australian Caterpillars and their Butterflies and Moths, which is hosted by the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House in New South Whales, Australia.

Dr. Don Herbison-Evans

Dr. Herbison-Evans has professional experience in a variety of scientific disciplines, including information technology and computer science, astronomy, and chemistry. His interest in entomology, however, was sparked when he emigrated from the UK to Sydney to start his academic career in the 1960s. He and good friend Dr. Stella A. Crossley (who also emigrated from the UK to Melbourne around the same time to lecture in the Psychology Department at Monash University) were fascinated by the number of caterpillar species they found in their gardens.

"I remember taking one beastie to the enquiries desk at the Australian Museum, and asking what species it was," recalled Don. "The lady there laughed, and then explained that most of the taxonomy of Australian Lepidoptera was done by entomologists at the British Museum on dried adult specimens sent back to the UK by Joseph Banks and other British explorers, so the entomologists had no idea what the early life stages, such as the caterpillars, were like."

Thus, Don and Stella started photographing the caterpillars they found and rearing them into adults to discover their mature counterparts. In an effort to share what they discovered, they wrote a manuscript entitled 100 Common Australian Caterpillars, but unfortunately, publishers' interest in caterpillars in the 1970s was virtually nonexistent. So Don and Stella shelved the manuscript.

And then, some twenty years later, along came the Internet.

"We were encouraged as univerisity staff to put potted biographies of ourselves on the web for students to know more about us, and of course we included a note in ours that we were interested in caterpillars," explained Don. "We then got increasing numbers of people sending descriptions and photos of caterpillars asking what they were. So we said: 'OK let's just put our book on the web.'"

And so Australian Caterpillars and their Butterflies and Mothswas born. The website contains webpages for over 3,600 Australian Lepidopteran species (having grown from an original 100). These webpages include descriptive information about the species as well as, where available, images of the adult and caterpillar forms. The pages are grouped according to family, and these pages are linked via a single page for moths and another for butterflies.

Example of BHL image in Australian Caterpillars and their Butterflies and Moths. Hesperilla bifasciata species page.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library serves as an excellent source of information for the website.

"BHL has enabled me to add historical richness to my popular descriptions of the biology of the Lepidoptera of Australia," stated Don.

Using BHL everyday, Don searches for references to species of interest in BHL using our taxonomic name finding tool. If this does not yield results, he searches the OCR of likely journal issues for genus or species names. He then links these pages to relevant content in the website. Where illustrations are available in BHL, these are also uploaded to the corresponding species pages. These illustrations, which offer an interesting juxtaposition to modern photographs, are, in fact, Don's favorite feature on BHL.

Example of BHL image in Australian Caterpillars and their Butterflies and Moths. Diduga flavicostata species page.

In addition to information about specific species, the website also provides some pretty incredible facts about caterpillars. For example, did you know that caterpillars have thousands of muscles, whereas humans only have about 500? Or that the female moths of the Australian species such as Teia anartoides have no wings, and the species disperses by the young caterpillars making an open gossamer sail out of silk, and sailing away on it in the wind?

Teia anartoides young caterpillars ballooning (Photo: courtesy of Rudie Kuiter, Aquatic Photographics, Victoria). http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/lyma/anart.html.

The website has become an incredible resource for those interested in exploring Australian Lepidoptera. Don particularly hopes that it will help spark an interest in these insects among younger audiences.

"Our idea in the webpages is to help, particularly young Australian people, understand and value the unique entomological heritage to which they are heirs, and to foster an understanding of how to preserve that heritage for future generations," Don explained. "The webpages try to be chatty and intriguing to, say, an intelligent 12 year old, but to include enough technical information to tempt them deeper into the ecology and taxonomy of Australian Lepidoptera. With the help of the Biodiversity Heritage Library and Wikipedia, we are able to link the current descriptions of the biology of the species to the original descriptions from two or more centuries ago and to biographies of their authors who can be seen to have been real people, who too were intensely interested in Australian fauna. I think this helps establish the idea in our readers that these organisms have perhaps as much right to live in Australia as they do, and that our living biological heritage can be preserved and maintained, just as [BHL] preserves our literary and scientific heritage."

We think the website is well on its way to achieving this goal. After all, what young person wouldn't want to learn more about a caterpillar that can fire fecal pellets from its anus?

Thanks very much to Dr. Herbison-Evans for sharing his work and use of BHL with us. Be sure to explore Australian Caterpillars and their Butterflies and Mothstoday.

Do you use BHL regularly for your work? Want to be featured on our blog? Send a message to feedback@biodiversitylibrary.org. 

Travels in Southern Africa: William John Burchell

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William John Burchell is credited "with having been the most prolific collector of botanical and zoological specimens." [1] During a four-year scientific exploration of South Africa, he amassed a collection of over 63,000 specimens. And yet, Burchell's contributions to science have been largely overlooked. As William Swainson bemoaned, "science must ever regret that one whose powers of mind were so varied...was so signally neglected in his own country." [2]

Portrait of William John Burchell by Thomas Herbert Maguire (1854). http://www.capeorchids.co.za/history.htm.

2015 marks the 200th anniversary of Burchell's return to Cape Town following his four-year expedition in South Africa. The University of Pretoria recently digitized Burchell's account of this journey, a two-volume work entitled Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa (1822-24) for BHL. This offers an excellent opportunity to not only highlight this recent addition from our colleagues in BHL Africa, but recognize the incredible accomplishments of a remarkable man.

William Burchell was born in Fulham, England, in 1781. His family owned the prosperous nine-and-a-half acre Fulham Nursery and Botanical Garden, which afforded him many opportunities to study botany and interact with some of the most influential natural historians of the day. Sir William Hooker, the first director of the Royal Gardens in Kew, was Burchell's friend and mentor. The prosperity of his family's business provided Burchell with the means to travel and nurture his interest in natural history and particularly botany.

View of Cape Town, Table Bay and Tygerberg, 26 December, 1810. Engraved from a drawing by William John Burchell. Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. v. 1 (1822). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48904900. Digitized by: University of Pretoria.

In 1810, Burchell arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, and on 19 June 1811, he set out from that city on a four-year expedition throughout the interior of southern Africa "solely for the purpose of acquiring knowledge." [2] During the journey, he covered 7,000 km, mostly in an ox-wagon that he designed to serve as his home, laboratory, and library. He traveled as far north-east as the asbestos mountains just north of Chue Spring and became the first recorded European explorer to successfully travel through Bushmanland. The account of his expedition, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, covers only the period from his arrival in Cape Town through his departure from Litakun in August 1812.

"A view in the town of Litakun." Engraved from a drawing by William John Burchell. Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. v. 2 (1824). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48905971. Digitized by: University of Pretoria.

Burchell's accomplishments on the journey were extensive, particularly in the field of natural history. He collected 50,000 species of plants, seeds and bulbs, 10,000 specimens of insects, animal skins, skeletons, and fish, numerous anthropological artifacts, and created 500 drawings during the expedition. The Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew now holds a vast majority of Burchell's extensive botanical collections. His journals document the precise location, morphological features, and habitat of the specimens he collected.

"Rock Fountain in the Country of the Bushmen." 9 September, 1811. Engraved from a drawing by William John Burchell. Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. v. 1 (1822). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48905175. Digitized by: University of Pretoria.
In addition to natural history, Burchell made important observations in the earth sciences during the expedition, being the first recorded person to identify asbestos in the Northern Cape and the "first to describe glacial pavements in the country." [2] He also charted his entire route, creating a "Map of the Extratropical Parts of Southern Africa" (published in v.1 of his book), which was a "milestone in the cartography of the country." [1] In the field of astronomy, he observed the variability of Eta Carinae's brightness, and, by using a combination of Friar's Balsam (Compound Tincture Benzoin), laudanum, Buchu vinegar, and Wild Wormwood to treat a serious gunshot wound afflicting one of the expedition's members, became the first recorded person to successfully integrate indigenous herbal medicine with medicines used in Europe "into the management of such a serious condition." [2]

Map of the Extratropical parts of Southern Africa. Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. v. 1 (1822). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48905480. Digitized by: University of Pretoria.

After Burchell's return to Cape Town in April 1815, he went on to travel in Brazil, collecting over 23,000 additional specimens. However, after his return to England, Burchell became increasingly reclusive and protective of his collections, focusing on cataloging his vast botanical specimens but also refusing to allow others to access his collections. Some historians hypothesize that he may have suffered from a bipolar-type disorder. [2] In 1863, at the age of 82, after one unsuccessful suicide attempt by gunshot, he hung himself in a small outhouse in his garden. He is buried near his home in Fulham, in the family tomb at All Saints Church, Hammersmith.

Burchell's Zebra (Equus quagga burchellii), named after William John Burchell by John Edward Gray. Brehm, Alfred Edmund. The Animals of the World (1895). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/37569339. Digitized by: Cornell University Library.

Though his life had a tragic ending, Burchell's accomplishments are remarkable. In addition to the many specimens he collected, a species of South African wild pomegranate (Burchellia bubalina) is named after him, and the common names of many animals bear his moniker, including Burchell's zebra, Burchell's coucal, three birds (Burchell's starling, coarser, and grouse), a lizard (Burchell's sand lizard), and the white rhinoceros (for which Burchell was the first to give a scientific name and is also known, although less-commonly, as Burchell's rhinoceros). He also recommended the establishment of a public garden in Cape Town. He described the Kirstenbosch area as "the most picturesque I had seen in the vicinity." [2] The Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden was founded in 1913.

We are honored to have a copy of Burchell's Travels in the Interior of Southern Africain BHL, thanks to the University of Pretoria, as, to quote historian George Theal, it is "one of the most trustworthy and valuable books ever issued upon South Africa." [1]

William John Burchell was an extraordinary man. We have not forgotten him.

[1] Stewart, Roger. "William John Burchell's Medical Challenges: A 19th Century Natural Philosopher in the Field."South African Medical Journal: 2012;102(4). pgs. 252-255.
[2] Stewart, Roger and Brian Warner. "William John Burchell: The Multi-skilled Polymath." South African Journal of Science. 2012;108(11/12), Art. #1207, 9 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajs.v108i11/12.1207

A Compelling Decade: Reviewing our Progress at the BHL Staff Meeting

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Eight years ago I attended my first Biodiversity Heritage Library staff meeting at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and it was there I was asked to report at the meeting on what I thought the philosophy behind a project to build a global freely accessible online biodiversity library was. My thoughts at that time hovered somewhere around deeply idealistic and altruistic ideas having to do with like-minded libraries collaborating to make the foundation of legacy scientific literature, then accessible only to few, accessible to all. These ideas also related to the growing open access movement. When funding for BHL became available, this type of idealism helped fuel the development of the long-term dynamic form and function of the BHL.

Matthew Person, MBLWHOI Library. Author of this blog post.

I recently thought back to that 2007 BHL meeting in St. Louis as I prepared to attend the BHL Staff Meeting held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, on November 12-13 2015. After years of working as a BHL staff member (we originally called ourselves worker bees!), at this staff meeting I needed to find compelling reasons for us to continue the unfinished work of developing and increasing the sustainability of our freely accessible library of legacy biodiversity content. It was a privilege to be at the Smithsonian to once again meet up with colleagues from sister institutions like Chicago’s Field Museum, Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology and Botany Department, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and the distinguished Natural History Museums in New York City, Washington DC, and London…just to name some of the natural history institutions represented at this meeting.

BHL Staff at the 2015 BHL Staff Meeting at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Photo: Martin Kalfatovic. 

The hands-on portion for the staff of this project began in 2007 when we first physically explored and analyzed the volumes filling the library stacks of our institutions, selecting materials, preparing those materials for scanning, having them scanned, and transferring the files first to our scanning partner the Internet Archive and then on to the newly developed BHL web portal. This entire process has been improved through successive generations of technological developments, transparent project administration, commitments across the board from the administrations of the BHL Partners and Affiliates, as well as the generous support of many funding agencies and foundations.

Gathered for a pre-meeting dinner at Smithsonian Libraries' Metadata Librarian Suzanne Pilsk's house. Photo: Martin Kalfatovic.

As our staff meeting at the Smithsonian progressed, I looked for and found many compelling reasons for our project to move ahead. Foremost of these reasons and the cornerstone of any organization of course, is its staff. Our BHL Library Staff is a cooperative, intelligent, and forward thinking group of librarians and technical development experts. Seeing my BHL colleagues is like meeting up with old friends and dear coworkers who have the highest respect for each other, because we have worked so successfully as a team for nearly an entire decade.

The BHL Staff is no longer at the foot of a mountain at the beginning of an epic hike to the peak, as we were in 2007. It could be said we have scaled the mountain and have discovered that our plan has been sound. The BHL vision statement, “Inspiring discovery through free access to biodiversity knowledge,” has created a global horizon for us. Our online library holds over 170,000 scanned volumes – linked to digital tools which give legacy biodiversity literature as much power as newly published electronic content. The scientific literature content of our library is being given even more power by our technical team, who makes sure our metadata “knows” how to speak with databases and tools outside of the BHL, whereby more scholars and other library users will encounter more links to the literature in our library in more places.

William Ulate, BHL Technical Director. Photo: Martin Kalfatovic.

During the meeting we listened to a review of the last 10 years of the BHL by Program Director Martin Kalfatovic and a technical overview of the architecture of BHL by Technical Director William Ulate. We completed an enumeration and analysis of all the tasks performed by BHL staff members, directed by Martin Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Librarian Keri Thompson, and BHL Secretariat Staff members Grace Costantino, Carolyn Sheffield, and Bianca Crowley, during which we gave ourselves a report card on how well we have done and brainstormed on how to better meet the needs of our Biodiversity Heritage Library users now and in the future. We also shared a number of delicious meals and many conversations over the course of a couple of days.

Small group brainstorming for analysis of tasks performed for BHL. Left to Right: Randy Smith (Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library), Diana Shih (American Museum of Natural History Library); Marty Schlabach (Cornell University Library); Cathy Buckwalter (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Library and Archives). Photo: Martin Kalfatovic.

Much like the first BHL meeting I attended, when the group adjourned we left with agreed upon follow-up tasks, comfortably knowing within a short period of time we’d be back in touch again via our regularly-held conference call meetings. The philosophy behind the concept of the BHL remains the same for me as it was almost a decade ago: we’re a global collaboration, working to ensure that the world’s legacy and select current biodiversity literature is accessible, usable, and sustainable. You can’t get any more compelling than that!

Matt Person
Tech Services Coordinator/Serials Librarian
MBLWHOI Library
Contributing Librarian 
Biodiversity Heritage Library

UPDATE: Technical Issues with BHL Custom PDFs 11/22-11/23

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Problems with the custom PDFs created on the BHL website on 11/22 and 11/23 have now been resolved. The links to access any PDFs that were generated during this time should now work. If you still experience problems, please send us feedback: http://biodiversitylibrary.org/contact. Thanks for your patience!

Report from GBIF 22 (Antananarivo, Madagascar, October 2015)

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2015.10.03-DSC03904GBIF 22 (Antananarivo, Madagascar)

From the TDWG and BHL Africa Workshop, BHL Director Martin Kalfatovic traveled to Madagascar for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) 22nd Meeting. He met up with Constance Rinaldo (BHL Vice Chair and librarian at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard).

Program Director's Report
Arriving early, there was an opportunity for some touring. I visited the historic 18th century palace of the kings and queens of Madagascar as well as a car tour of other sites in the capital, Antananarivo (aka "Tana"). We also were able to take an overnight trip (4 hours east of Tana) to the Andasibe National Park. It was an amazing rainforest park; we were able to spot 5 species of lemur as well as chameleons, frogs and various birds.

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Traffic in Tana is even worse than Nairobi. There is an immense amount of zebu (an ox-like taurine) drawn carts as well as carts pulled by people. That, plus the cars, scooters, chickens, pedestrians (and total lack of any traffic control) turns a 10 minute trip into 45-60 minutes. It seems a significant portion of the population is engaged in either working the rice paddies (that are everywhere) or cutting, bundling, and carrying (by zebu cart, hand cart, or on their back) sheaves of zebu food. Zebu is on the menu morning, noon, and night!

2015.10.03-DSC037332015.10.03-DSC038862015.10.03-DSC03901

The first two days of the meeting were for the GBIF Nodes. I am the BHL Nodes Manager. These sessions were workshops on biodiversity data mobilization and related activities. I worked on the work groups for funding of biodiversity information and digitization of natural history collections.

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The next three days of the meeting were the GBIF governance meetings. Constance Rinaldo sat in as Head of Delegation for BHL (in Nancy Gwinn's absence). For complex reasons, the United States was unable to send in person the usual Head of Delegation (from the National Science Foundation), so I was asked to act as the U.S. Head of Delegation. There was nearly full representation of the voting members (about 27 nations). Additionally, non-voting nations (Brazil, Canada, Israel, Japan) and organizations (BHL, EOL, Naturalis, etc.) were there.

GBIF governance meeting #madagascarIMG_20151008_081238IMG_20151008_084929

The meetings consisted of reports from all the chairs of groups (Node Manager, finance, etc.). There were also reviews of the past year's activities. The second day commenced with the GBIF Symposium that included a keynote talk by GBIF Executive Director Donald Hobern and talks by other members of the GBIF Secretariat. The Symposium concluded with the presentation of the first and second place winners of the Ebbe Nielsen Challenge. The winners were (see details at GBIF press release):
  • First prize winner: GBIF Dataset Metrics (Peter Desmet, Bart Aelterman and Nicolas Noé)
  • Second prize: BioGUID.org (Richard Pyle)
Moving back into the business of the meeting, there were votes on budget and other financial action items. Jane Silverthorne (NSF), Head of Delegation, was on Skype and we consulted via Skype-chat on the U.S. votes. Officers for next year were also voted on. The meeting concluded with a presentation by Brazil to host the GBIF 23 meeting in Brasilia. The voting members approved the recommendation on Brasilia as the next location. The U.S. requested the meeting to be held in September if possible.

PhotoIMG_20151009_154102IMG_20151008_131051

That evening, there was a closing banquet at the Paon d'Or Hotel with Malagasy music and presentation gifts of thanks to the Malagasy hosts and GBIF Secretariat staff for their work. I stayed late since I had a 3:30 am flight the next morning (and no hotel room for the night). Returned to my previous hotel (where I left my bags) and did some work out at the mosquito-infested pool area til about midnight when I was taken to the Antananarivo Airport (a bit of a spooky place at 1 am since it's mostly outdoors). Flight left on time and I made it to Nairobi where I had a twelve hour layover before continuing on to Zurich (with a five hour layover) and then back to Washington on Sunday.

2015.10.09-DSC043732015.10.09-DSC043662015.10.09-DSC04376


IMG_20151006_092815APPENDIX I: Notes from GBIF Nodes Meeting, 6-7 October 2015
  • About 35 people attending. 
  • Donald Hobern (GBIF Ex. Secretary). Update and Strategic Plan
Topics
CC Licensing
Key elements include endorsing CC licenses to all datasets. CC-BY, CC0, CC-CY-NC will be the options. If data providers cannot use one of these, the data sets will be removed. All of this will be completed by December 2015. Secretariat will work with the data publishers to make this happen. End result, all GBIF data sets will have a CC license by the end of CY 2015.

DOIs and Citation
All GBIF datasets will have a DOI. Zootaxa first publication to cite GBIF data with a DOI. 1 billion records downloaded from GBIF each day. Next steps include a revision to the GBIF Data User agreement (by end of 2015); work with DataCite and publishers to start mining of GBIF DOIs; develop a reporting service.

Sample-Based Data
Darwin Core Event now supports sample based data (ratified at TDWG 2015). Next steps are to monitor and report use of this extension in the network

Strategic Plan
GBIF operates on 5 year plans; currently in 3rd phase; new strategic plan will cover 2017-2021. Plan will be voted on at this Governance meeting.
  • Priority 1: Deliver Relevant Data
  • Priority 2: Improve Data Quality
  • Priority 3: Fill data gaps
  • Priority 4: Enhance Biodiversity Informatics Infrastructure
  • Priority 5: Empower Global Network
Report of Nodes Committee Chair, Hanna Koivula, Nodes Committee Chair
Would like to see more communication to/with the Nodes Community. Use Google Docs and the GBIF Community site. Needs to be more work to communicate BACK to the community.

Mandate of the Nodes Committee include:
  • best practices
  • identify barriers
  • exchange of knowledge
  • communicate Nodes requirements back to Science Committee and Secretariat
  • identify Nodes that can offer help to achieve goals
  • help new participants and establish new Nodes
Nodes Committee and Steering Group meet every second year at GBIF; have ad hoc working groups

Review of Regional Collaboration, Olaf Banaki, GBIF Secretariat
GB15 advanced the regional nodes approach. Formally adopted in 2011 (GB18).

There have been 28 regional meetings since 2008 with more than 600 participants; estimated costs  €520,699; every region except Oceania.

SWOT Analysis
Strengths
  • Regional sub-committees can be effective
  • improved regional communications
Weaknesses
  • Communications
  • Funding
Opportunities
  • regional sub-committees could inform regional science policy
  • regional sub-committees could coordinate use of funds to deliver GBIF goals
  • Accelerate engagement with non-Participant countries in their regions
Threats
  • Regional sub-committees may overlap with other regional initiatives
  • Lack of geo coverage may affect credibility and effectiveness of regional committees
Node Workplan Overview, Manual Vargas
Workplan needed for managing collaborations including capacity enhancement, regional work plans, inter-regional collaborations, and project financed by external sponsors.

Examples of collaboration
  • GBIF Brazil portal
  • ALA portal sponsored by ERAnet
Draft workplan in the process by the Nodes Committee (NC) at end of 2014; Node Steering Group (NSG) analyzed this at start of 2015.

Top three priorities:
  • How to connect with users
  • promote collaborations
  • develop biodiv curriculum
Mapped to the 2012-16 and 2017-21 strategic plans. These plans will be worked on in detail during the rest of this meeting.

BREAK OUT SESSIONS
There were five working groups to discuss various topics. I was in the "Funding GBIF Nodes" session and was the note taker and group reporter. Others in my group were from Tanzania, India, Madagascar, and Togo. A discussion of objectives, outcomes, activities, and actions.

Working group on Common Approaches to Digitization and Repatriation (Anders Telenius)
Overview of NH collection digitization with concentration on Europe. Did round robin for group to report on know national, pan-national or major institutional NH collections digitization. BHL, iDigBio, ALA, ABCDN, NH Paris, Smithsonian, and other projects were discussed.

Second day started with a recap of previous day's work on inventory of global initiatives and regional projects. Concluded with lightning talks on various projects til close.

IMG_20151008_084659APPENDIX II: GBIF Governance Meeting
There was a quorum of voting members.

A number of changes in the constituency with various countries moving between members and affiliates. Braulio Dias, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) sent a video message of welcome.  Nice tribute to Len Hirsch from the GBIF Governing Board Chair (Peter Schalk).

Governing Board Chair Report
  • significant increase in data use over previous year
  • important collaboration meeting earlier this year in Leiden with BHL, EOL, CoL and EBOLD
Executive Secretary Report
  • complex organization; various staff changes and pay scale changes (lowering salaries at the top and increasing them at the bottom)
  • major plan now underway (complete by December) to license all data in GBIF using Creative Commons
  • GBIF now using DOIs for data sets that will allow for tracking of use and provide metrics
IMG_20151009_120719Comments on Executive Secretary Report:
  • Staffing levels of the GBIF Secretariat, is it too big, too small, just right?
    ANSWER:  there are 23 total staff of the Secretariat which is a lot; total cost of Secretariat (due to staff changes and different salary structures) has gone down.
  • Secretariat complimented on transparency of finances and organization. Also asked for a statement on what the value add is of GBIF is to biodiversity research.
    ANSWER: Thank you and good question that will be addressed in GBIF publications and reports.
Action Item on Reports from Committees and Groups
  • Reports were accepted by voting delegation by acclamation.
Report of the Science Committee
  • Ebbe Nielsen challenge was a success; next year, but focus on "ignorance mapping" (finding out what we don't know)
  • GBIF needs to take the lead (along with Catalogue of Life) on rectifying names
  • needs to work on improving data quality
  • need to provide a value proposition for GBIF data to convince government funders of value
Comments on Science Committee Report:
  • Species 2000 (Dave Remsen): Pointed out Catalogue of Life is a key partner of GBIF to mobilize taxonomic names. Encourages taxonomic experts in countries to work with CoL on the problem of names.
  • Angola: How can national nodes work to validate data publishers?
    ANSWER: need open transparent access and close work with the GBIF Secretariat; key is to make sure that data is being validated at the national level.
  • South Africa: will the taxonomic names project be properly funded and staffed (and can GBIF actually afford this?); also noted that GBIF is further down the value chain for governments (e.g. not as close to home as something like SANBI)
  • Australia: Happy to hear that GBIF is willing to tackle the names problem.
Report of the Nodes Committee
  • Recapped work of the past year and the work of the previous two days.
IMG_20151009_093855Report of the Budget Committee
  • only 30% of dues were paid by the March deadline; 92% were in by 30 September
  • Late payments are a challenge to cash flow
Financial Regulations Discussion
  • overview of the financial methodology of GBIF
  • Basic Funds = Dues and donations
  • Supplementary Funds = Contributions from members to Secretariat
  • Project Funds = grants and contracts with direct deliverables; defined timespan
  • Holds 20% in Reserve/Contingency fund historically
  • Define Core activities and estimate budget for those activities
Revised Financial Model
Key thing in the model is that there is a new formula for calculating financial contributions by voting members. Goal of the change was to simplify the model, to reduce dependency on a few large countries, a move to a GDP model, and locked in for a 5 year period.

Under this model, US dues will be cut nearly in half (from €700k to €500K); ensures that no single country will contribute more than 15% of the overall budget.

Strategic Plan Discussion
  • Priority 1: Deliver Relevant Data
  • Priority 2: Improve Data Quality
  • Priority 3: Fill data gaps
  • Priority 4: Enhance Biodiversity Informatics Infrastructure
  • Priority 5: Empower Global Network
General discussion of the strategic plan points took up the greater part of the rest of the afternoon.

Day 2 opened with the GBIF Symposium consisting of reports from various members of the GBIF Secretariat and Committee chairs.

Being ahead of schedule, moved on to the business session slated for Day 3; budget plan (known as the workplan) was approved as submitted after discussion. Moved on to voting on slate of candidates. Peter Schalk was reelected as Chair (unopposed), all other slots were also unopposed and approved; contested spots were 2nd and 3rd vice chair of the Science Committee, Philippe Grandcolas (2nd Vice chair) and Anders Telenius and G. Finstad (3rd Vice chair) -- both were running for both slots, so no real losers.

Location of GBIF 23. Only Brazil put forward a bid and it was approved unanimously. The US asked for the meeting to take place in September and that will be taken under consideration and decided in the coming months.

2015.10.05-IMG_5230APPENDIX III
Lemur species sited at Andasibe-Mantadia National Park:
  • Indri (Intri indri)
  • Bamboo lemur (Hapalemur)
  • Diademed sifaka (Propithecus diadema)
  • Common brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus)
  • Gray Gentle Lemur (Hapalemur griseus)
APPENDIX IV

New Feature on BHL: Add Comments to a Book!

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We are pleased to announce that we have added the ability to add comments to books in the BHL website!

This new feature will allow you to easily share your discoveries while reading BHL books, highlight interesting content, post your expertise for others to see, engage in conversations about BHL books from directly within BHL, and easily discover all of the great posts from your fellow biodiversity-enthusiasts. We hope that this tool will provide another way for users to engage with our collections and network with others in the BHL community.

The new commenting feature is powered by Disqus, a social commenting tool that allows people to discuss content on websites. Disqus is the commenting tool currently in use on the BHL blog. Disqus works like other social platforms, allowing you to follow people or communities, recommend discussions (which is essentially “liking” or “favoriting” the discussion), and, on your personal Disqus homepage, see the comments and discussions from people and communities you follow, replies to your comments, or discussions recommended by those you follow. You can also share discussions via Twitter and Facebook. Thus, your comments won't be lost in a vacuum but can be easily discovered and contributed to by other users.

How to Comment on Books in BHL


When you are viewing a book in BHL, you will notice that a new tab has been added to the book viewer that reads "Add Comments." Click on the tab to expand the comment window. Within the expanded window, you can add a comment to the page you are viewing and view the existing comments on that page. Comments are added at the page-level, meaning that as you scroll through the book, the "Add Comments" tab will display only those comments added to the page you are viewing. If you add a new comment, it will be associated with the page you are viewing when you add the comment.

The "Add Comments" tab in the book viewer. Click to expand the window, add a comment to the page, and view existing comments on the page.

If there are no existing comments on the page you are viewing, the window will display the message "No Comments Yet. Click Here to Discuss this Page." Click the message to add a comment to the page.

A page with no comments on it. Click the "Click Here to Discuss this Page" message to add a comment.
You must have a Disqus account to comment on a page in BHL. You can login to your Disqus account through the "Login" link in the "Add Comments" tab or by choosing one of the sign-in methods displayed beneath the comment text box.

Ways to login to your Disqus account to post a comment.

If you do not have a Disqus account, you can create one from within BHL, or you can sign-up on the Disqus website.

Click on the "Name" box to sign-up for a Disqus account from within BHL.

Once you are logged into Disqus, you can type your comment into the comment text box and then click the "Post As [Username]" button to submit your comment. You will then see your comment posted to the page.

Add your comment to the text box and click "Post as [Username]" to submit your comment.

If there are pre-existing comments on the page, expanding the "Add Comments" tab will display the previous comments added to that page as well as provide you with the text box to add your own comment. Posting a comment will add your comment to the list of previously-posted comments.

A page with existing comments.

Beneath each comment, you can click on "Edit" to edit your own comments, "Reply" to reply to an existing comment, or "Share" to share the work on Twitter or Facebook.

Edit, Reply to, or Share comments from BHL.

As comments are added to pages, a count bubble will display on top of the "Add Comments" tab. This bubble will show the number of comments that have been added to the page you are viewing. The count will increase when you add a new comment to a page. This count bubble will not display if there are no comments on the page.

Count of existing comments on the page.

Talk bubble icons will also appear in the "Pages" box next to those pages that have comments on them. Scrolling through the "Pages" window is a quick way to see which pages in the book have comments. When a comment is added to a page for the first time, a new talk bubble icon will display next to that page in the "Pages" window.

Talk bubble icons displayed next to those pages that have a comment on them.

Once you expand the "Add Comments" tab, it will remain open as you scroll through the book, updating as you scroll to display the comments on the current page you are viewing. To close the window, simply click on the tab again, which will read as "Hide Comments" once the window is expanded. This will close the comment window until you expand it again by clicking on the "Add Comments" tab.

Click "Hide Comments" to close the comments window.

View and Follow Comments Added to Books in BHL


You can click on the "View BHL's Community" link in the comment window to see a list of all of the comments added to any book in BHL. The list is available on the BHL profile page in Disqus.

Click on "View BHL's Community" to see all of the comments added to any book in BHL.

To see all of the comments added to just the book you are currently viewing, click the "Community" link in the comments window.

Click on "Community" to see a list of all of the comments added to just the book you viewing.

You can follow BHL on Disqus to receive notification of any new comments added to any book in BHL. Simply click on "Follow" on the BHL Disqus profile page. You will then receive notifications of all new comments added to BHL books via the "Recommended" feed on your Disqus homepage.

Click the "Follow" button on the BHL Disqus profile page to receive notification of any new comments added to any books in BHL.
Once you follow BHL on Disqus, you will receive notification of any new comments added to any book in BHL via the "Recommended" feed on your Disqus homepage.
If you want to receive notification of new comments added to a particular book in BHL, simply "Follow" that book's forum on Disqus. To do this, click on the "Community" link in the comment window for the book you want to receive notifications about. This will take you to that book's forum on Disqus. Click on the "Follow" button in the forum's header. You will then receive notification of new comments added to that book in the "Latest Discussions" feed on your Disqus homepage.

Click on the "Community" link for the book you want to receive notifications about.

Clicking "Community" will take you to the book's Forum in Disqus. Click on "Follow" to follow the book and receive notification of new comments added to that book.
Once you follow a book's forum, you will receive notification of new comments added to that book in the "Latest Discussions" tab on your Disqus homepage.

Tell us what you Think!


We want to know what you think about our new commenting feature. Send us any feedback you have about the tool via our feedback form or by leaving a comment to this blog post. We'll use your feedback to help us improve the service.

*Please note: BHL reserves the right to monitor comments added to our library and remove any that do not comply with the terms of use as stated in the "Interactive Features and User-Generated Content" section on this page: http://biodivlib.wikispaces.com/Terms+of+Service.

This feature has been added as part of BHL's Mining Biodiversity project. Mining Biodiversity is funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Grant number LG-00-14-0032-14).

BHL Data Dash - Dec 7th - 9th 2015

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The Biodiversity Heritage Library is hosting a 48-hour data correction event on December 7-9 2015. We’re enlisting the help of you, the BHL community, to help us complete 10,000 pages from BHL’s OCR output that we can then use as a training set to apply to the remaining BHL corpus.
Here’s how it will work
On Monday December 7th we will begin the start of the sprint at 9am eastern standard time.  You can help us meet our Data Dash goal of 10,000 pages by playing Beanstalk at beanstalkgame.org and typing as many words as you can within the 48 hour timeframe.


Beanstalk, designed by the award winning design labTiltfactor based at Dartmouth, is a quick and easy browser game that asks players to type the word they are shown on the screen. These corrected words are then re-ingested into BHL resulting in new and improved OCR. The more words that players type correctly, the faster the beanstalk grows, and the more contributions are made to BHL.


We will update players on how well they are helping us reach the goal by giving updates throughout the event via BHL social media. To make it more fun we encourage players to register before playing the game so that their scores can be tallied against other players during the event. (please note:  we will be resetting the leaderboards for the duration of this event but afterwards will restore the scores. i.e. current players will not lose their cumulative scores)  Get to the top of the “Weekly” leaderboard by correctly transcribing the most words, and declare yourself the victor of vines!
   
        
Besides seeing your name on the weekly leaderboard, the top 3 players that remain at the end of the dash on Wed Dec 9th 9am EST will receive their choice of BHL swag – which include a selection of notecards featuring beautiful illustrations from BHL books; bookmarks about both of BHL’s games (Beanstalk and Smorball), and Smorball trucker hats featuring the beloved home team the Eugene Mellonballers.

 smorball hat.jpg
While BHL swag is oh so sweet, we know the primary motivating factor for the BHL community will be improving biodiversity research and with every word you type you will be doing just that!

Why now?
The IMLS-funded project,Purposeful gaming and BHL, is coming to a close at the end of this year.  While the games will continue to be available online beyond 2015, the project’s objectives – to demonstrate whether or not digital games are a successful tool for analyzing and improving digital outputs from OCR – need to be met which includes collection of a substantial number of text corrections via gaming.

So please won’t you help us to dash to the finish line to meet the number of data corrections needed to help improve the discoverability of historic biodiversity literature?

Play a Game. Grow a Beanstalk. Save a Book.  

Tree change for the Biodiversity Heritage Library Australia

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This post originally published on the Museum Victoria blog. See the original post

Nicole Kearney
Coordinator | Biodiversity Heritage Library Australia 
Museum Victoria

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world's largest online repository of library and archival materials related to biodiversity. Its aim is to make the world's biodiversity literature openly available online.

In Australia, BHL is managed by Museum Victoria and we have been contributing to this global resource since 2011. We have a team of wonderful volunteers who digitise our rare books and historic journals and prepare the digital versions for publication online. Over the past 4 years, BHL Australia has digitised 593 items comprising almost 150,000 pages of our biological heritage that used to be locked up in our library archives.

Bob Griffith, BHL Volunteer, digitising a rare book from the State Botanical Collection. Image: Nicole Kearney. Source: Museum Victoria.

Earlier this year we learned that our digitisation operation would have to be shut down for several months while Museum Victoria undergoes a major reorganisation of its collection stores. The stores will be much more efficiently arranged after the move, but while the relocation is occurring the collections will be inaccessible – and this includes our library collection.

An idea began to germinate...

The National Herbarium Library at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria have long been interested in the BHL, and researchers at the Herbarium certainly use and appreciate the BHL resource. They were very keen to digitise their own library collection, but didn't have the resources to do so. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to collaborate and undertake a project that would be of benefit to both institutions.

National Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. Image: Nicole Kearney. Source: Museum Victoria.

Last week Museum Victoria moved its entire digitisation operation to the other side of Melbourne. The equipment, volunteers and our BHL staff will be spending the summer at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Just yesterday we digitised the first book from their State Botanical Collection and it will soon be available online.

Illustrationes florae novae hollandiae, sive icones generum quae in prodromo florae novae hollandiae et insulae van diemen descripsit robertus brown by Ferdinand .L. Bauer, from the State Botanical Collection. Image: Cerise Howard. Source: Museum Victoria.

As the lead organisation for BHL in Australia, a major part of our role is to encourage and support other organisations to digitise their own collections. The Royal Botanic Gardens joins our other partners – the Australian Museum, the South Australian Museum and the Queensland Museum– in making their own biodiversity heritage openly available online. ​
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