Biodiversity Heritage Library

This is Mariah Lewis, Metadata Specialist for the Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature Grant Project, reporting in! Well, we didn't get that biodiversity literature television show we had been hoping for, but the Expanding Access grant team was on the move again in February conducting training sessions. This time it was a cross-country adventure to California. Happy to escape the New York winter, I began my adventure in San Diego.

Balboa Park is the home to the renowned San Diego Zoo, child of San Diego Zoo Global. However, northeast of the more traditional zoo, nestled among bright green mountains in the San Pasqual Valley is the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The expansive wildlife sanctuary covers 1,800 acres and is occupied by over 3,000 animal residents. Over the weekend I was able to visit this oasis, go on a safari on the Africa tram, and even catch a cheetah cub feeding.

As the weekend ended it was time to get to work! Also found at the Safari Park is the Institute for Conservation Research, the Harter Veterinary Medical Center, and the San Diego Zoo Global Library. The Library is committed to providing materials, research, and project assistance to the San Diego Zoo Global crew and houses most of the zoo's collection of over 12,000 books and journals.

The Expanding Access training was hosted and attended by the Library staff. The two-day training cast a broad net including an overview of BHL, instruction on BHL systems and workflows, and hands on training of those BHL systems. We look forward to working with the team at the San Diego Zoo Global Library to include Bulletins of the Zoological Society of San Diego and other titles in the Biodiversity Heritage Library!

Photograph by: Jeanne Nelson
Pictured: Beth Autin, Mariah Lewis, and Kathy Elliott at the San Diego Zoo

The next stop on my California adventure was Lost Angeles after getting a (non-literal) crash course in California rush hour. The second training session was hosted at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden and included staff from the LA Arboretum Library and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, both now Affiliates of BHL.

The history of the Los Angeles County Arboretum is rich and well documented on the Arboretum's website. A year after its founding in 1947, Dr. Frans Verdoorn- the first director- obtained the Library's first 1,000 books. With such a storied history it is no surprise that the Arboretum goes beyond being a botanical garden and also represents a historical site. The Library is a great example of how the LA Arboretum respects and exceed its mission to, "cultivate our natural, horticultural and historic resources for learning, enjoyment and inspiration." The current structure that houses the Library was originally built in 1959 with the addition of an annex built in 1986. The library is open to the public and its materials can be used on site. The Library holds a truly extensive collection of seed catalogs from companies across California- from Los Angeles to San Francisco. These seed catalogs will be added to BHL as part of the Expanding Access project.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is one of three in a family of natural history museums. The other two are the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum and the William S. Hart Park and Museum. Located southwest of downtown Lost Angeles, the Museum has a collection of over 35 million objects placing it among the top collectors of natural and cultural history collections in terms of both the vastness and value of the items. It holds the title of being the largest of its kind within its collection since its inception in 1913. The Library has over 200,000 items and over 30 Special Collections in a number of fields related to natural history. The Library is accessible to Natural History Museum staff and researchers who make appointments. They have a strong focus on Southern California with content dating back to the 16th century. As one of their first additions to the Expanding Access project, they will be contributing a very rare and significant book about the birds of Ceylon.

This training was more focused on the hands-on aspects of BHL- getting images and information into BHL and making sure it is in the best possible condition for our users. The day was beautiful and we were able to enjoy lunch with the Arboretum's many peacock residents. The namesake for their face, there is also an event in March celebrating the friendly fowl whose lineage dates back to the late 1800s. The interactions between these two institutions and their staff was a wonderful reminder of the collaborative nature of the Biodiversity Heritage Library and its ability to help institutions transcend silos.

Photograph by: Bill Vogt
Pictured: Marissa Kings, Susan Eubank, Mariah Lewis, Patty Johnson, Lauren Noonan, Richard Hulser

While the weather for the trainings was perfect- in true California fashion- I was also able to experience the rain storm that made headlines. Hailed as a "once-in-a-decade" storm, I was truly able to get a well-rounded and amazing experience in Southern California. A special thanks goes out to my fabulous hosts in San Diego and Los Angeles for being part of the Expanding Access project and taking time out of their week to learn more about BHL!

References:

Donahue, Katharine E.S. “Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Research Library.” Science & Technology Libraries 6, no. 1–2 (October 4, 1985): 83–89. doi:10.1300/J122v06n01_09.

“Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County - Los Angeles County.” Accessed March 2, 2017. http://www.lacounty.gov/things-to-do/libraries-museums/museum-of-natural-history.

“Libraries & Museums - Los Angeles County.” Accessed March 9, 2017. http://www.lacounty.gov/things-to-do/libraries-museums/.

“Our History | The Arboretum.” Accessed March 2, 2017. http://www.arboretum.org/explore/our-history/.

“Research Library.” Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, May 24, 2010. http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/research-library.

“SDZG Library.” Accessed March 13, 2017. http://library.sandiegozoo.org/about.htm.

“About San Diego Zoo Global.” San Diego Zoo Safari Park, December 16, 2014. http://sdzsafaripark.org/visitor-info/about-san-diego-zoo-global.

Photographs: All photographs, unless otherwise noted, were taken by Mariah Lewis.

Hello all, BHL NDSR Cohort speaking!

For the past couple of weeks we have been busy settling into our residencies, attending some conferences and preparing for future presentations. We created the NDSR at BHL blog to provide weekly updates about our projects. We have already engaged with the biodiversity community and applied feedback from readers to focus our research. Our blog draws from BHL’s open communication philosophy by encouraging feedback and dialogue on our posts.To catch you up to speed, we have prepared a quick overview of our recent blog posts.

Katie gave us an overview of transcription tools including: Ben Brumfield’s FromThePage, the Australian Museum’s DigiVol, the Smithsonian Institution’s Transcription Center, and The Zooniverse’s Project Builder and their Scribe development framework. As she works to integrate transcription services for handwritten materials (such as field notes and correspondence) into BHL, Katie explores these tools and their applicability to handwritten scientific materials.
In order to perform a content analysis of the BHL corpus, Alicia began to map out what is included in the scope of biodiversity literature to begin to understand where BHL fits and where it still lacks coverage.
We also reflected on several professional events. All of the residents attended the “BHL Bootcamp” hosted by Smithsonian Libraries in February where we were introduced to the BHL staff and administration, learned BHL history, how to use BHL technology and the BHL mission and culture. A few weeks after Bootcamp, Marissa attended a training session on the Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature (EABL) project presented by Mariah Lewis of the New York Botanical Garden held at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. In early March, Marissa and Katie both attended the Code4Lib Conference in LA which brings together professionals who work for library, museums, and archives and deal with technology. Marissa and Katie each wrote reflections on workshops they attended and the lessons learned.

We'll be providing a compendium of our blog posts like this every 6 weeks here on the BHL Blog. Be sure to subscribe to NDSR at BHL if you would like to read each new post as it is published. Next up, Ariadne will introduce history, important considerations, and ideas surrounding her project, and Pam will provide an update on her project about getting to know the BHL users and how they interact with BHL.

By Daniel Atha
Director of Conservation Outreach
The New York Botanical Garden

With contributions by Susan Lynch, Vanessa Bezemer Sellers and Stephen Sinon of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library at The New York Botanical Garden

Crayon drawing of John Torrey by Sir Daniel Macnee. From the collection of Sir William Hooker, Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England.

John Torrey (1796-1873) was a preeminent early American botanist. From 1818-1820, Torrey kept a careful record of the plants that he encountered in and around New York City and called his work Calendarium Florae for the Vicinity of New York. The Mertz Library at The New York Botanical Garden is the proud owner of this remarkable manuscript, which was recently digitized and added to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The image below depicts a full page spread from the Calendarium, showing Torreys neatly written and methodically arranged list of plants.

Torrey, John. Calendarium Florae for the Vicinity of New York. Digitized by the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, New York Botanical Garden.

The map below shows many of the locations noted in the Calendarium, including Greenwich (now Greenwich Village), the Elgin Botanic Garden (now Rockefeller Center), Bloomingdale (now the Upper West Side of Manhattan), and Hoboken, New Jersey. The map dates from 1811, shortly before Torrey started work on the Calendarium, and helps us visualize the region where Torrey lived and conducted his early studies.

Eddy, John H. Map of the Country Thirty Miles Round the City of New York. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/h1o9di.

Torrey's Calendarium is what today is called a phenological record; a document registering the name of an organism and the date of some biological phenomenon. Torrey's Calendarium lists the plants by scientific name, date of first bloom, and the locations for several hundred species; in this case plants observed around the New York archipelago, from the salt marshes of Brooklyn to the cedar swamps of New Jersey. On his travels through the City, Torrey detailed the common plants of roads, gardens, and woodlots of lower Manhattan, including the stagnant waters around Greenwich, the swamp flora behind the Elgin Botanic Garden, and the wildflowers of Bloomingdale woods. Through his eyes and through his pen, we are witness to the last generation of Rock Harlequin, Tall Thimbleweed, Tuckahoe, Pinweed, Slender Rose Gentian, Smooth Yellow False Foxglove and many others plants soon to be extirpated from the island of Manhattan, as the hills were leveled and the rubble used to fill the swamps. Some species, like Sphagnum Moss, Sundew, and Three-leaf Goldthread (shown in the images below), were eradicated entirely from the boundaries of the City, and, due to a warming climate, are difficult to grow today even under cultivation.

Coptis trifolia or Three-leaf Goldenthread observed by John Torrey. Calendarium Florae for the Vicinity of New York by John Torrey. Digitized by The New York Botanical Garden. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50916772.

Coptis trifolia or Three-leaf Goldenthread from American Medical Botany: Being a Collection of the Native Medicinal Plants of the United States by Jacob Bigelow. v.1. 1817. p.60. Digitized by Missouri Botanical Garden. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2955644.

In the year 1818, the first year in which observations were recorded in the Calendarium, John Torrey, only 22 years of age, graduated with a degree in medicine from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. During this time, he was also helping to found the Lyceum of Natural History in New York (the forerunner of the New York Academy of Sciences), and published several important articles in the first issue of the Lyceums Annals. Meanwhile he was also nearing completion of a Flora of the vicinity of New York, and he was laying the foundation for his lifelong ambition to publish a Flora of North America.

John Torrey was not the first to record the phenology of plants. Farmers, priests, philosophers, and scientists from the earliest days of agriculture and writing recorded the occurrences of biological phenomena to track seasons and planting cycles. Nor was Torrey the first American to keep such records. As in many areas of the arts and sciences in America, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) blazed the trail for record keeping, experimentation and advocacy for plant science. Jefferson's Garden book (what he called a "Kalendar"), spans the years 1766 to 1824 and records not only planting dates and harvest times of garden vegetables, but includes the bloom cycles of woodland wildflowers of the Virginia Piedmont.

Plant records such as those kept by Thomas Jefferson, John Torrey, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), and many others since then, bridge a critical gap in phenological research, much as dendrochronolgists use tree rings from new archeological finds to complete a portrait of past climactic events. In addition to providing a window on the past, Torrey's Calendarium is also a window on the future. Those studying climate change and its biological signals will find a wealth of new information. Torrey's data are the holy grail of phenological recording due to his stature as the unrivaled taxonomic expert of his day. In addition, Torreys observations are confirmed by herbarium specimens, preserved to this day in the collections of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden. Completed at the dawn of the 19th Century, Torrey's Calendarium is a scientifically rigorous phenological record for New York City. The Calendarium can be thought of as an early draft of his first major professional achievement, his Flora of New York City, Catalogue of Plants Growing Spontaneously within Thirty Miles of the City of New York, published in 1819.

Resources

Eustis, Elizabeth S., and David Andrews. "Creating a North American Flora."Flora Illustrata: Great Works from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden. Edited by Susan M. Fraser and Vanessa Bezemer Sellers. New York: The New York Botanical Garden and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
Robbins, Christine Chapman. John Torrey (1796-1873). His Life and Times. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, vol. 95, no. 6, 1968. 515-645. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2483657. Accessed 07 March 2017.

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was one of the most important botanists of the 19th century and Kew Gardens' most illustrious Director (1865-1885). To celebrate the bicentenary of his birth this year, BHL is joining the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to highlight Hooker's works and contributions as part of the #JDHooker2017 campaign.

To coincide with the opening of a new exhibit at Kew's Shirley Sherwood Gallery, BHL is featuring Hooker's publications and related artworks in our online book collection and Flickr albums. Learn more about the BHL collections here.

Learn more about Kew's exhibit, which opened on 25 March, in the post below. Then, be sure to follow #JDHooker2017 on social media as we celebrate Hooker's life and works.

We hope you'll also join us again the week of 26-30 June 2017 as we continue our celebrations as part of a larger campaign in conjunction with The Making of Modern Botany conference at Kew Gardens, hosted on 30 June 2017.

Joseph Hooker the ‘King of Kew’

By Rebecca Carter
Gallery Assistant, The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, pen and ink on paper (1886) by Theodore Blake Wirgman.

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) was a highly respected botanist and relentless explorer, who is regarded as the founder of modern botanical classification. He held the position of Director at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for twenty years, adding thousands of specimens to its collection.

To mark the bicentenary of his birth, the Shirley Sherwood Gallery has curated an exhibition exploring his extensive travels and contribution to the field of botany. The collection at Kew contains numerous artifacts, sketches and paintings relating to Hooker’s incredible life and professional journey, of which a proportion is showcased in this exhibition. By showing a diverse selection of work, the exhibition looks to uncover the impact Hooker had on the botanical world, as well as discovering what made Joseph Hooker the ‘King of Kew’.

The title of the exhibition, Joseph Hooker: Putting plants in their place, refers to Hooker’s belief that specimens should be collected and then classified scientifically. He also proposed that plant’s habitats should be better understood and that there should be a place and opportunity to elevate the scientific status of botany to the same scholarly status as other sciences such as physics.

Kew was at the very heart of Hooker's career and through his travels and publications he transformed Kew from a rather run-down royal pleasure garden into the world-class scientific establishment it is recognized as today.

The public at the time met with Hooker’s desire to protect Kew’s role as a serious scientific institution with apparent antipathy; it was reported in newspapers that Londoners were outraged to find the gates to the Gardens locked in the mornings on bank holidays. This public outcry led to Hooker clashing with politicians and the public several times and ended with him conceding to early openings. On display in the exhibition are cartoons and notices from contemporary newspapers, exploring this fascinating history whilst Hooker was Director of Kew.

Kew Gardens Grievances notice from The Times, published October 1879, facsimile print.

Today, Kew is a leading centre for scientific botanical research and it is partly down to Hooker’s explorations that this foundation was set. On 30 September 1839 when he was 22 years old, Hooker set off on his first voyage. He was the youngest crew member on Her Majesty’s Discovery Ship Erebus, serving as the ship's assistant surgeon and the expedition’s botanist.

On his many travels he drew and collected plants, naming many previously unknown-to-science plants and trees. Hooker named many plants after botanists and friends as a way of thanking and acknowledging fellow scientists. For example, Hooker named the Tasmanian gum tree Eucalyptus gunnii after his friend the collector Ronald Campbell Gunn. Hooker also had plants named after himself, such as the New Zealand ‘golden wand’ Bulbinella hookeri which was named by his friend and New Zealand missionary William Colenso.

Hooker didn’t confine his drawings to plants. He also sketched houses, animals and landscapes. Our favourite pieces on display in this exhibition depict his time in the Himalayas. The selection of sketches below reveals detailed drawings of a variety of views of Lacham valley and Lamteng village.

Hooker’s good friend and talented artist Walter Hood Fitch drew the middle sketch at the top, which is a re-work of Hooker’s original drawing. Fitch often sketched Hooker’s drawings, preparing lithographs for botanical books such as his Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya (1849-51).

The intricate sketch of the village and landscape shows that Hooker was also thinking about the habitat and the environment the native plants were exposed to. His drawing of a Yak also demonstrates an understanding of local culture and way of life. Yaks were the most important domesticated animal in the Himalaya and the detail in this sketch is exquisite.

From above Lamteng village looking up Lachem valley, (1848) Joseph Dalton Hooker, pencil, pen and watercolour on paper, with lithograph.

The galleries at Kew have more than one reason to be grateful for Hooker’s influence as Director of Kew. In 1879, Marianne North wrote to Hooker offering to build a gallery in which to display her botanical artwork. Hooker gave North permission, and the Marianne North Gallery was duly built in a mixture of classical and colonial style, finally opening in its finished form in 1886. Without Hooker’s permission, Kew would not have this significant collection of Victorian botanical art, which serves as an important catalogue of the world’s plants. Alongside the 833 paintings on display, North also collected samples of wood from the countries she visited. The unusual way in which the gallery was curated is unique to Kew, and it is always a breath-taking experience.

In summary, Joseph Hooker: Putting plants in their place looks at a range of fascinating artifacts and paintings to explore the professional journey of Joseph Hooker as second Director of Kew. It primarily looks at how Hooker revolutionized botany to a scientific status and examines his influence on Kew’s transformation from a simple pleasure garden to the scientific centre of research it is known for today.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library Members’ Council elected a new Executive Committee at the BHL Annual Meeting in Singapore. The Executive Committee appointments include: Constance Rinaldo (Ernst Mayr Library, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University), Chair; Jane Smith (Natural History Museum Library, London), Vice-Chair; Doug Holland (Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library), Secretary; and Nancy E. Gwinn (Smithsonian Libraries), Immediate Past-Chair.

"It is an honor and a privilege to have this opportunity to lead the Biodiversity Heritage Library as we forge ahead into the next 10 years," affirmed Rinaldo. "I thank my predecessor, Dr. Nancy Gwinn, for her work in strengthening the BHL and ensuring a strong foundation with the extraordinary Secretariat staff housed at the Smithsonian Libraries. I also thank Professor James Hanken, Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, for the museum's support and encouragement of the BHL over these years. I look forward to working with current and future BHL partners to expand organizational and technological sustainability as we invest in the future of open data, open science and research connections across disciplines."

The BHL Executive Committee provides strategic leadership and governance decisions for the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Officers are elected for two-year terms by the BHL Members’ Council, which is comprised of one representative from each BHL Member institution. This year’s elections took place on 17 March 2017 during the business portion of the Members’ Annual Meeting, hosted by the National Library Board, Singapore.

The current committee replaces the previous appointments elected in 2015: Nancy E. Gwinn, Chair; Constance Rinaldo, Vice-Chair; Jane Smith, Secretary.

"It has been my honor to serve as the Chair of the BHL Members' Council for the past five years, and I am delighted to see Constance (Connie) Rinaldo assume this role, working with Jane Smith as Vice Chair and Doug Holland as Secretary," expressed Gwinn. "Connie’s contributions as Vice-Chair, with its responsibility for the Global Partners, have already played a vital role in the success of BHL. I am confident that under Connie’s leadership, the BHL will continue to thrive and empower research on a global scale. In the newly defined role of Immediate Past-Chair, I look forward to continuing my work with her and the rest of the Members' Council to ensure the growth and prosperity of the Biodiversity Heritage Library."

BHL Executive Committee Bios

Constance Rinaldo (Ernst Mayr Library, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University), Chair.

Constance Rinaldo has been the Librarian of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University since 1999. She is a founding member (2005) and previous Vice-Chair of the BHL Members’ Council. Rinaldo has a BA in Biology and Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, an MSc in Zoology from the University of Connecticut, and an MLS from the University of Maryland. Prior to coming to Harvard, Rinaldo spent 10 years as Head of Collections in the Biomedical Libraries at Dartmouth College and in the late 1980s was an assistant in the National Agricultural Library Text Digitization Project.

Jane Smith (Natural History Museum Library, London), Vice-Chair.

Jane Smith has served as the Head of Library and Archives at the Natural History Museum, London since September 2012, before which she served as the Head of Library Collections and Services (2006 – 2012). Prior to joining the NHM, she was Deputy Librarian and then Librarian at the British Medical Association and Centre Manager at the Department of Health-funded National Centre for Clinical Audit, which has since evolved into the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). From 2015-2017, Smith served as the Secretary of the BHL Members’ Council.

Doug Holland (Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library), Secretary.

Doug Holland started at the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1994, serving first in the Horticulture Division, followed by several years as a botanical research assistant in the Herbarium and several more as archivist and historian. In 2004, he became Director of the Peter H. Raven Library. He now manages the Garden’s world-class research library, archives and digitization program. He is a founding member of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), a past-President of the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, and also manages the St. Louis Research Library Consortium.

Nancy E. Gwinn (Smithsonian Libraries), Immediate Past-Chair.

Nancy E. Gwinn has been director of the Smithsonian Libraries since 1997. She oversees a network of 21 libraries and central services units and is a recognized leader in international librarianship, in developing digital libraries, in building cooperative programs and partnerships, and in promoting Smithsonian scholarship to external communities. Under Gwinn’s leadership, the Libraries initiated and became a lead partner in establishing the international Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and the program’s Secretariat. She served as chair of the BHL Members Council from 2011–2017 and member of the executive committee of a companion project, the Encyclopedia of Life.

On 15 March 2017, the Singapore Botanic Gardens hosted a Biodiversity Heritage Library Open Day in conjunction with the BHL Annual Meeting, the latter of which occurred March 14-17 and was hosted by the National Library, Singapore.

BHL Open Day invited local guests to learn more about BHL and its impact on global science. The program featured speakers from the BHL community and biodiversity-related disciplines. Speakers included: Dr. Nigel Taylor (Group Director, Singapore Botanic Gardens, National Parks Board); Martin R. Kalfatovic (BHL Program Director and Assistant Director, Digital Programs and Initiatives Division, Smithsonian Libraries); Wai Yin Pryke (Director, National Library Singapore); Professor Peter K.L. Ng (Head, Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum); Grace Costantino (BHL Outreach and Communication Manager); and Dr. Elycia Wallis (Manager of Online Collections, Museums Victoria).

Wai Yin Pryke welcoming guests to the BHL Open Day 2017. Photo by Grace Costantino.

Following welcome speeches by Wai Yin Pryke and Dr. Nancy E. Gwinn (Director, Smithsonian Libraries and Immediate Past-Chair of the BHL Members' Council), Dr. Nigel Taylor provided context to the event's venue by presenting a history of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which was founded in 1859. Dr. Taylor incorporated archival photographs into his presentation to document the development of the gardens and demonstrate how it played an important role in early agricultural development in Singapore.

Following Dr. Taylor, Martin Kalfatovic provided an overview of BHL, focusing on global initiatives, program growth, and collection usage. Wai Yin Pryke followed with a presentation on the BHL Singapore story to date. BHL Singapore, founded by the National Library Board, Singapore, joined the BHL community in 2014, and has since been working to digitize the collections of the National Library and mobilize participation from other Singapore institutions.

Dr. Peter Ng presenting at BHL Open Day 2017. Photo by Grace Costantino.

Dr. Peter Ng led the afternoon session with a presentation about the history of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, which hosted the BHL Partners meeting on 16 March, and a "taxonomist's wish-list" for future BHL development. An expert on aquatic biodiversity, Dr. Ng's personal research focuses on the systematics and diversity of decapod crustaceans. Among his wish-list items for BHL were the expansion of curated collections; allowing users to correct metadata in BHL, such as date information; the simplification of high resolution image downloads; and collaboration with taxonomists to create checklists and bibliographies.

The final portion of the afternoon session featured presentations by Grace Costantino on BHL outreach initiatives and Dr. Elycia Wallis on the ways that biodiversity literature in BHL provides a window into the strange, exotic, and marvelous biodiversity of Australia.

Tour of the Singapore Botanic Gardens Library by Dr. Nigel Taylor. Photo by Martin R. Kalfatovic.

Following the BHL Open Day presentations, attendees were treated to a tour of the Singapore Botanic Gardens and Library and an evening reception. Highlights of the tour included the giant tiger orchid, which is likely the world's oldest and largest specimen orchid, several heritage trees, including the Tembusu tree featured on the Singapore $5 note, and entertaining displays from local clouded monitor lizards (Varanus nebulous) digging in the leaf litter for food.

The giant tiger orchid at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Photo by Martin R. Kalfatovic.

The Tembusu tree at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, featured on the $5 Singapore note. Photo by Martin R. Kalfatovic.

Clouded monitor lizards (Varanus nebulous) digging for food. Photo by Martin R. Kalfatovic.

BHL staff were thrilled to have an additional opportunity to share BHL with the local Singapore community through a public talk at the National Library, Singapore on 17 March. Martin Kalfatovic and Grace Costantino provided an overview of BHL and shared stories about the impact BHL has on various research disciplines to nearly 50 attendees. See the event slides here.

Attendees of the BHL Public Talk at the National Library, Singapore on 17 March, 2017. Photo by National Library, Singapore.

Martin Kalfatovic presenting at the BHL Public Talk at the National Library, Singapore on 17 March, 2017. Photo by National Library, Singapore.

Grace Costantino presenting at the BHL Public Talk at the National Library, Singapore on 17 March, 2017. Photo by National Library, Singapore.

We thank the National Library, Singapore and the Singapore Botanic Gardens for organizing and hosting these public events during our Annual Meeting in Singapore! Both events provided us with an excellent opportunity to share the story of BHL's impact on global science, identify future development priorities based on input from the audience and guest speakers, and network with the local Singapore community.

During 14-17 March 2017, the Biodiversity Heritage Library held its Annual Meetings in Singapore, hosted by the National Library Board. The meetings were attended by 24 BHL partner representatives from nine countries.

2017 BHL Annual Meeting Group photo
LKC Natural History Museum, Singapore

Shakespeare in Print: The First Folio

Led by Wai Yin Pryke, National Librarian of Singapore, our hosts arranged three unique venues for the meetings. Committee meetings started off at the National Library Board building in downtown Singapore. The opening day of the meetings also included a curator-led tour of the exhibitions "Shakespeare in Print: The First Folio" (which included a copy of the First Folio on loan from the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries ) and "Anatomy of a Free Mind: Tan Swie Hian’s Notebooks and Creations". BHL was also treated to an overview of the rare collections from the National Library's Lee Kong Chian Reference Library.

Nigel Taylor with Ely Wallis

The BHL Open Day Symposium and reception was hosted by the Singapore Botanic Gardens and Dr. Nigel Taylor, Group Director SBG. At the close of the symposium, Dr. Taylor led a group on a tour of the library and archives of the Gardens and a walking tour of the fabulous tropical botanical garden. See earlier blog post for more information.

Dr. Peter Ng, Director of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at the National University of Singapore was our host for the BHL Partners' Meeting held on 16 March 2017. To open the meeting, Chair Nancy E. Gwinn provided a "State of the BHL" overview of the past year. Gildas Illien (Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle) gave a presentation on how the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle became one of BHL's newest Members. This was followed by four project presentations:

BHL Egypt by Ahmed Barghout, BHL Egypt / Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Foundations to Actions (NDSR) by Constance Rinaldo, Librarian of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University (Chair, BHL Members' Council)
Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature (EABL) and Torrey Digitization & Transcription by Susan Fraser, LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New York Botanical Garden
BHL and Smithsonian Field Notes Projects by Carolyn A. Sheffield, BHL / Smithsonian Libraries

Peter Ng

Nigel Taylor

Wai Yin Pryke

LKC Natural History Museum

All partners present were also given the opportunity to provide brief reports on their work over the past year and plans for the current year. These reports can be found here, along with reports from those partners unable to attend the meeting in person. Bianca Crowley, the BHL Collections Manager, also provided a 2016 collections report via video recording. The meeting concluded with a ceremony honoring the volunteers from around the world who contribute to the BHL. After the Partners' Meeting, Dr. Ng also kindly led a tour of the museum for all BHL meeting attendees.

Kalfatovic, Gwinn, and Diana Duncan (The Field Museum) at
Volunteer Recognition Ceremony

Gildas Illien

The final day of meetings saw the BHL Member representatives return to the National Library Board building to conclude the business portion of the meetings as well as the Membership Committee meeting. BHL Program Director Martin R. Kalfatovic gave the Program Director's Report, which included an overview of the coming year and outlined goals and technical priorities. Carolyn A. Sheffield, BHL Program Manager, provided a financial overview for the current and forthcoming year and, with Jane Smith (Natural History Museum, London and Vice-Chair, BHL Members' Council) led a strategic planning session.

At the business meeting, the Members voted in favor of restructuring the Affiliates fee to USD 3,000 for the first year (with an included BHL workshop) and then an ongoing fee of USD 1,000.

The Members also selected the location of the 2018 BHL Annual Meeting. The 2018 meeting will be held in Los Angeles, California and jointly hosted by the Natural History Museum / Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden.

Constance Rinaldo (L) & Jane Smith (R),
not pictured, Doug Holland

BHL Members also elected a new Executive Committee. The new BHL Executive Committee now consists of (see previous post for more information):

Constance Rinaldo, Librarian of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University (Chair)
Jane Smith, Head of Library and Archives, Natural History Museum, London (Vice-Chair)
Doug Holland, Director of the Peter H. Raven Library, Missouri Botanical Garden
Nancy E. Gwinn, Director, Smithsonian Libraries (Immediate Past-Chair)

The meetings were adjourned and followed by a reception where Dr. Gwinn was honored for her five years as BHL Chair. BHL also thanked all the staff from the National Library Board, Singapore, led by Wai Yin Pryke, that contributed to the success of the meetings.

Jane Smith, Wai Yin Pryke, Constance Rinaldo
& Nancy E. Gwinn (L to R)

Abigail Huang,Grace Chan, Thiruselvi Gopal, & Chris Koh
National Library Board Staff

By Rick Wright
Writer, lecturer, and professional tour leader.
BHL Guest Blogger.

The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777. By John Trumbull. Depicting the death of the American General Hugh Mercer at the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777 during the American Revolutionary War. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

We all remember the Hessian mercenaries, those drunken, bayonet-wielding louts hired by George the Third to put down his rebellious American colonies. Every American schoolchild learns about these monsters, and how they suffered their come-uppance in Trenton in 1776, when their Christmas debauch came to an abrupt and bloody end in a battle their rum-blurred eyes never even saw coming.

The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, December 26, 1776. By John Trumbull. Depicting the capture of the Hessian soldiers at the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26, 1776 during the American Revolutionary War. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

For over 200 years, we’ve painted the German soldiers in America with a mighty broad brush. I’m sure that there were barbarians among them, but there were also educated men who spent their time on this side of the Atlantic studying this exotic continent and its inhabitants—when they weren’t drinking and fighting and skewering patriot children, that is.

Portrait of Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim. Frontispiece of volume 39 of the Öconomische Enzyklopädie of 1787. Source: http://www.kruenitz1.uni-trier.de/.

The botanists among these scholarly soldiers are the best known today. Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim (1747/1749-1800), educated in forestry science in his native Saxony, arrived in New York in June 1777, and would eventually see combat on the British side at Brandywine and Charleston. When he wasn’t in battle, though, he wrote that:

"without neglecting my official duties, I spent every leisure hour in acquiring both a theoretical and a practical knowledge of the woody plants growing in that temperate region of North America."

In May 1780, stationed in northern Manhattan, he completed his first book, A Description of Certain North American Trees and Shrubs, which appeared in print in 1781.

Title page, A Description of Certain North American Trees and Shrubs by Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim.

On returning to Europe in 1784, von Wangenheim expanded that work, which had covered 72 species, into a comprehensive treatise on the woody plants of North America and the possibility of transplanting them into German forests for timber and fuel.

Title page, Beytrag zur teutschen holzgerechten Forstwissenschaft, die Anpflanzung Nordamericanischer Holzarten mit Anwendung auf teutsche Forste. By Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim.

These publications and a mass of articles and essays made von Wangenheim a name and earned him an appointment as chief forester of East Prussia. There he made his most important contribution to zoology, a thorough study of the European elk in Lithuania.

The "moose deer" or European elk (Cervus alces). From Pennant, Thomas. Arctic zoology. v. 1 (1874). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/29568042. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Von Wangenheim brought his American experience to bear in his account, noting in his practical way that the species is called the “moose deer” in the New World, where native Americans use its skin for clothing, gloves, moccasins, blankets, and tents.

Portrait of Johann David Schoepf. Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101428527-img.

More ambitious still, and less intensely focused on the economic use of the plants and animals around him, was Johann David Schoepf (1752-1800), field surgeon to one of the most notoriously bloodthirsty of the German regiments. Like von Wangenheim, Schoepf arrived in New York in June 1777. Once the war was over, inspired by the famous tours of Bartram and Catesby, Schoepf spent a year traveling west to Kentucky and south eventually to the Bahamas. Trained, like so many physicians of his day, in botany, Schoepf was naturally most interested in American plants and their medical uses; among the professional colleagues he most eagerly sought out were William Bartram and Henry Melchior Mühlenberg, but he also collected plant lore from native Americans, country doctors, and “old wives.”

Title page of Materia medica americana potissimvm regni vegetabilis. (1787). By Johann David Schöpf. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/16502307. Digitized by University of Pittsburgh Library System .

Schoepf published his observations in 1787, in a comprehensive manual of the New World’s medicinal resources. Schoepf lists more than 350 plants, fungi, and lichens used in medicine, and ends his compendium with remarks on remedies derived from animal and mineral materials, ranging from human fat (an “obsolete, superstitious” practice) and dried rattlesnake flesh to amber and coal.

Today, Schoepf is most famous not for his pharmacopeia but for another book, the last he published before his early death in 1800. On his return to Europe in the summer of 1784, Schoepf took with him 64 live turtles, specimens that provided the basis for his Illustrated Natural History of the Turtles, published in Erlangen in 1792.

Title page of Ioannis Davidis Schoepff Historia testvdinvm iconibvs illvstrata. (1792) ("Illustrated Natural History of Turtles"). By Johann David Schöpf. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32540981. Digitized by Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library.

Among the species he treated there was one he named Testudo terrapin; Schoepf based his description and plate on two shells he had collected on Long Island and on two others sent him by Mühlenberg (perhaps from the market in Philadelphia).

Testudo terrapin. Naturgeschichte der Schildköten. (1792-1801). By Johann David Schöpf. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/38925513. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

This was the first scientific description of the handsome species now known as the diamondback terrapin.

While von Wangenheim barely mentioned birds in his accounts of North American nature, Schoepf was more interested in things feathered. He found northern cardinals and blue grosbeaks in the Carolinas, and appears to have made close observations of turkey vultures, pointing out that the large, moist nostrils suggest that though “not proved, it is nevertheless likely” that they locate their aromatic prey by smell. Less credible is Schoepf’s claim that he and his companions encountered ivory-billed woodpeckers in eastern Pennsylvania.

Ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis). Catesby, Mark. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. Ed. 1, v. 1 (1729-1747). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40753165. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The occasional misidentification aside, early American ornithology suffered a significant loss when Schoepf entrusted to Jacob Rubsamen his manuscript containing “numerous and precisely written descriptions of almost all the birds” he had seen in America. Rubsamen, a German immigrant whose Virginia gunpowder mill had been destroyed by the British at the end of the war, was to have sent those pages on to Schoepf in Charleston, but they never arrived.

One “Hessian” soldier who did make a significant contribution to American ornithology will probably remain forever anonymous.

Fringilla iliaca. Avium rariorum et minus cognitarum. (1786). By Merrem, Blasius. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46489269. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Sometime before 1786, this unknown naturalist shipped the preserved skin of a large and colorful bunting to Blasius Merrem, the first professor of zoology at the university of Marburg. Merrem recognized the specimen as the representative of a new species, which he named Fringilla iliaca for the heavy reddish chevrons marking its breast and side. Who knows how long science might have had to wait for a description of the red fox sparrow had George the Third not leaned on his teutonic cousins for help?

In February 1784, five months after the treaty ending the American Revolution was signed in Paris, the great Welsh litterateur Thomas Pennant regretted that the “fatal and humiliating hour” had not only “deprived Britain of power, strength, and glory,” but had “mortified” him into abruptly stopping work on what was to have been a new Natural History of North America. Horrified as he was at the historic turn of events, Pennant was nevertheless confident that “some native Naturalist” in the New World would complete the work that he had begun. Little did he know that some German soldiers fighting in America had been working alongside him all along.

By Elizabeth Meyer
Project Assistant, Ernst Mayr Library of Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology

As a part of the Field Notes Project, the Ernst Mayr Library is digitizing the journals, correspondences and photographs of William Brewster (1851-1919), a self-trained ornithologist and specimen curator at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and a co-founder and president of the American Ornithologists’ Union.

Brewster recorded a lifetime of observations on wildlife and plants, changing landscapes, and daily weather, making his notes a valuable resource for modern scientists studying ecological change. After working as an animal specimen curator for the MCZ for many years, he also bequeathed his personal collection of birds and other animals to the museum.

As I’ve worked to digitize and transcribe the Brewster collection, I’ve been periodically sharing interesting finds in a blog post series on the Mayr Library website. These posts highlight entertaining animal encounters, beautiful descriptions, letters, and more.

Lower image: Portrait of Brewster with his camera at
Lake Umbagog, Maine, likely captured by his assistant, Gilbert.
Journals of William Brewster, 1871-1919 (inclusive). (1898). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/45105729

I’ve been especially fascinated to track the development of Brewster’s thoughts on scientific collecting. I touched on this subject in a post on the Biodiversity Heritage Library blog, “Digging into the writings of a 19th century ornithologist”. As I’ve continued to scan and transcribe the Brewster collection, an interesting story has emerged. It was a complex job to juggle the hats of museum curator, scientific collector, and bird-lover.

In an 1886 letter, Brewster scoffed at the assertion that “the best was to study bird was with an opera glass!”[1] This was one decade before the Massachusetts Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds was founded, with Brewster as its first president. Despite his earlier reservations, journals from the 1890s show Brewster embracing new methods of data collection using binoculars and cameras, and reflecting critically on the future methods and goals in zoology.

While he continued to advocate for the importance of collecting wildlife specimens, Brewster increasingly felt that humans had an ethical responsibility to carefully mitigate human impact on wildlife - and this responsibility belonged to scientists, too.

Brewster returned for many years to make observations at Lake Umbagog, Maine, sometimes staying in his specially built house-boat.
The person standing on deck is probably his assistant, Gilbert. Journals of William Brewster, 1871-1919 (inclusive). (1898). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/45105746

In the 1890s Brewster began to consistently document a deep conflict between his desire to study nature and his desire to leave wildlife untouched. Because his field notes are typically more focused on data than on personal details, these comments really do stand out and signal that this became a matter of great concern to him. In 1892, he observes:

As on several former occasions when I have seen a Hawk catch a smaller bird and have listened to its expiring cries I was moved by deep pity and fierce wrath to an extent surprising on the part of one who, like myself, has killed thousands of birds without suffering more than an occasional slight qualm. But there is something peculiarly moving and piteous in the voice of a bird in the clutches of a Hawk - a quality of mingled pain and apprehension which the grasp of the human hand seldom or never elicits. [2]

Over the next few years, we find that he has gone from those aforementioned “occasional slight qualm[s]” to a daily struggle to complete his work. In 1896 he refers to collecting birds as “a most painful task”[3], and writes that he is sometimes “quite unable to bring [himself] to the point of doing it.” [4]

Close-up of a female moose Brewster sketched at Lake Umbagog, Maine. Journals of William Brewster, 1871-1919 (inclusive). (1896). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44924677

It’s clear that Brewster saw a need for some change in the current scientific practices. Birds were generally being over-harvested, for fashion but also for science. And not only was nature conservation on his mind, but it seems that he felt personally dissatisfied by the limited scope of zoology. Brewster saw the need to legitimize observational studies of animal behavior in a scientific community that was focused primarily on taxonomy and building large collections. While he wrote many letters to colleagues debating the species and subspecies designation of specimens, his journals are brimming with descriptions and speculations about animal behaviors.

From his correspondences, we can see that his thinking was encouraged by Frank Michler Chapman, a younger friend and colleague working at the American Museum of Natural History. In 1890, Chapman had written to Brewster to express his concern that specimen collecting was destructively out of control:

This miserable collecting. It is the cause of all higher failing, it lowers a true love of nature through a desire for gain. I don’t mean a specimen here and there, but this shooting right and left, this boasting of how many skins have been made in a day or season. We are becoming pot-hunters. We proclaim how little we know of the habits of birds and then kill them at sight. Sometimes I am completely disgusted with our ways and myself in particular… I long for an outing where the gun will be secondary, recorded observations primary, where I shall be entirely alone or with a companion whose object is my object.

We expect too much, that’s the trouble. Collecting, we have at the end of each day some tangible result to show for the day’s work. But it is useless to expect some novel or interesting incident for every day[‘]s observation. But listen to this final result: If I had gone down the Suwanee [River] to record what I saw, I could now have written a more or less interesting paper, as it is I have nothing to say, but I have a hundred or so skins. The question with me is, how am I going to change this? ...We have degenerated to ‘gunners’; our success in the field is estimated by the size of our collections.

... Will you embark with me on a novel ornithological expedition, whose aim shall be to really observe birds to learn something of them. Where the gun shall be a servant, not a master, where days may pass without a skin being made, where there will be time to speculate and discuss the habits of birds observed, where systematic observation of certain phaenomena may be attempted... Returning we could write a paper. How do you suppose this paper would compare with the ones we have to-day, where after a trip[‘]s experience all we can say concerning a given species is: Common, arrived ___.

Such a paper with your name attached to it would start a new epoch in the study of American birds. Imagine any one now-a-days making an extended trip for the sole purpose of observing birds. I know, I have several papers in mind which approach this - yours are nearest. Do you suppose we can reach that condition of mind where one good observation will be considered worth fifty skins, - as it really is. [Line breaks and emphasis added.] [5]

A page from William Brewster's journal. Illustration reads "Made by Mr. Chapman from the feather of the ivory-bill shot March 24 and sent to me as a Christmas mount Dec. 25 1890."
Journals of William Brewster, 1871-1919 (inclusive). (1890). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44690675

Brewster was too busy with travel and fieldwork to respond directly (in writing, at least) to Chapman’s proposition, but he did reply a few weeks later, “I have been off in my canoe along the ‘South Shore’ of Mass for the past month & have made a good many valuable notes… I left the gun at home for the first time in my life and did not once regret it, either!” [6]

How amazing it was to find, in writing, a proposal to launch “a new epoch in the study of American birds”! While specimen collections are an important part of modern scientific work, it’s true that the study of zoology does look very different today than it did in the 19th century, and here we see the seeds of that change.

It would be easiest to paint Brewster as simply a taxidermist, or as an environmentalist, but as usual we find that the scientist was about as complex as the subjects he studied. Just as Brewster’s careful notes on species abundance and daily temperature are an invaluable resource for researchers, it’s enriching from a humanities perspective to uncover the personal stories that drove a major paradigm shift in the study and stewardship of natural world. While nothing quite compares to studying old documents in a quiet room, it’s exciting to be widening accessibility to these data and historical insights.

The BHL Field Notes Project is funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).
Images used in this post were previously digitized with funds from IMLS.

Citations:
[1] Correspondences, Letter to George Sennet, March 7, 1886. Soon to be available in BHL
[2] July 28. Journals of William Brewster, 1871-1919 (inclusive). (1892). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44790847
[3] July 3. Journals of William Brewster, 1871-1919 (inclusive). (1896). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44924596
[4] July 9. Journals of William Brewster, 1871-1919 (inclusive). (1896). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44924608
[5] Correspondences, Frank Michler Chapman to William Brewster, June 15, 1890. Soon to be available in BHL
[6] Correspondences, William Brewster to Frank Michler Chapman, August 8, 1890. Soon to be available in BHL

Additional Resources:
To read more about Brewster's encounter with the moose, read 'Notes from William Brewster: Moose!'
To learn more about how scientists use specimen collections today read ‘Natural history collections – why are they relevant?’ on The Guardian, or visit the page ‘Why Collections Matter’ on the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections’ website.

To learn more about the origins of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, read ‘Hats off to Audubon’ in Audubon Magazine, and the ‘History of Mass Audubon’ page on the society’s website.

This Earth Day weekend, the Earth Optimism Summit in Washington, D.C. will shift the environmental conversation from one of doom and gloom to one of optimism and solutions. The Summit will celebrate conservation success stories and fuel discussions about how to expand conservation impact.

Organized by the Smithsonian Institution, the three-day event (21-23 April) will bring together representatives from a wide array of fields (including science, journalism, the arts, public policy, and more!) for a series of presentations relaying over 100 conservation success stories.

The Summit will also include a public Innovation Commons event featuring exhibits showcasing the ways that a variety of organizations and projects support conservation and help protect biodiversity.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library is participating in the Innovation Commons with a booth highlighting the many ways that BHL helps save biodiversity by supporting research around the world.

Click here to learn more about how BHL supports science and conservation.

The Innovation Commons is open to the public. If you're in the Washington, D.C. area, we invite you to stop by our booth to learn more about BHL and join us in celebrating conservation success stories!

WHERE?
Atrium of The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004.
WHEN?
Friday, April 21st: 7:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday, April 22nd: 7:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Sunday, April 23rd: 7:30 AM - 2:00 PM

Learn more on the Earth Optimism website.

In the 1950s, an introduced population of hemlock woolly adelgids (Adelges tsugae), native to Japan, was discovered on the East Coast of the United States. Since its introduction to the US, it has become a major destructive pest that is causing widespread mortality to hemlock trees. A member of the Adelgidae family, Adelges tsugae is closely related to aphids.

Another close relative of the aphids, Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, has also caused extensive damage as a destructive pest. The grape phylloxeran (D. vitifoliae), originally native to eastern North America, feeds on the roots of Vitis vinifera grapes, stunting the growth of or killing its vines. In the late 19th century, after the species was accidentally introduced to Europe by botanists collecting American vine specimens, a phylloxera epidemic destroyed most of the wine grape vineyards on the continent. The species, a member of the Phylloxeridae family, remains a pest to worldwide commercial vineyards to this day.

But while both the Adelgidae and Phylloxeridae families include species of great economic importance, until recently, neither had been fully cataloged. Fortunately, thanks to help from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, comprehensive catalogs for both have now been published through Zookeys and can be accessed via BHL (Adelgidae and Phylloxeridae).

Three different galls, each representing a different species of Phylloxera, on a leaf of shagbark hickory in the Montreal Botanical Garden: P. caryaevenae (along the vein in front), P. caryaesepta (cut open in the middle), and P. caryaeglobuli (in back). Photo take in June 2016 by Khalil Abas, used with permission.

According to co-author Dr. Colin Favret, it's no surprise that science went so long without these comprehensive catalogs.

"Until BHL, the original literature for these groups was particularly hard to access," explains Favret.

Colin Favret, October 2016. Photo by Karen Favret, used with permission.

Favret, an assistant professor of insect systematics and biodiversity at the University of Montreal, studies insect diversity patterns, with a particular research focus on the evolution and systematics of aphids. In 2008, he began comprehensively cataloguing aphid taxa. This work led him to BHL. Since then, it has become integral to his research.

"BHL has become indispensable and is one of the most important literature resources I use. It may even be as important as the sum of the subscriptions in my employer’s library," lauds Favret. "It has significantly improved the caliber of my literature research, and I can point to a number of my publications that would not have been written if not for BHL content."

An aphid, Essigella sp., tended by an ant while feeding on the needle of a Californian Coulter pine, June 2013. Photo by Colin Favret, used with permission.

BHL has had a significant impact on one of Favret's primary research projects - the Aphid Species File, a database containing taxonomic, nomenclatural, and bibliographic information for all the aphids of the world, including all extant and fossil taxa.

"What makes this project unique is that I’m going back to the historical literature to confirm every original description and the validity and correct spelling of every name," explains Favret. "It is amazing how many errors in the secondary literature I’m able to correct."

Favret's use of BHL is usually prompted by research for a nomenclatural or taxonomic paper and directed by the need for a specific article, which he downloads using BHL's custom PDF generation service. He also uses BHL for teaching, linking to Haeckel’s phylogeny in his first-year animal diversity course and to Hooke’s flea in his second-year entomology course.

Of all the services offered by BHL, not surprisingly, it is the literature itself that is most important to Favret. He hopes collection development will remain a priority.

"Simply having the literature available for examination and download is hands down the most important and my favorite feature of BHL," expresses Favret. "Although there are any number of novel developments that might be interesting, I’d say adding new titles should always be BHL's top priority."

Some of Favret's favorite finds in the BHL collection are species descriptions that predate Linnaeus, such as those by French scientist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur. de Réaumur's Memoires pour servir a l'histoire des insectes not only includes many aphid descriptions that were later cited by others like Linnaeus, but it also features, as Favret points out, "some really old aphid illustrations."

Réaumur, René-Antoine Ferchault de. Memoires pour servir a l'histoire des insectes. T. 3 (1737). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14412711. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Be it delighting the world through free access to historic literature and "really old" #SciArt, or supporting the creation of comprehensive taxonomic catalogs and databases, we're thrilled to see the many important ways that BHL is supporting global research.

And to all you invasive Adelgidae and Phylloxeridae species, watch out. Science is coming for you.

BHL licenses content under a Creative Commons
Attribution Non-commercial Share-alike 4.0 license

The first quarter of 2017 saw 39 in-copyright titles added to BHL, setting the pace for another record-breaking year. New international BHL Members and Affiliates, as well as grant projects like Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature, have contributed to the growing number of recent titles in the collection, as member libraries continue to chip away at digitizing the legacy literature.

Below is the list of titles for which BHL received permission in January, February, and March of 2017. While most of these titles have not yet been digitized, be sure to check the recent additions page, which is updated regularly. Links will also be provided on BHL's Permissions page once they're available.

1. Australian Garden History Society

Australian Garden History

2. Carol D. Allen

North American native terrestrial orchids: propagation and production: conference proceedings, March 16 & 17

3. Amphipacifica Research Publications

Amphipacifica

4. Cherokee Garden Library, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center

Hastings' Seeds

5. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Atoll Research Bulletin

6. International Hoya Association

Fraterna
Newsletter

7. Robert Dale Kloppenburg

Dr. Schlecter's Hoyas
Hoya Basics: A Beginner's Guide to Growing and Caring for Hoyas
Hoya New
Hoya pollinaria: A Photographic Study
Hoya section sperlingii (vahl) miquel
Hoya Sections: A Complete Study with Modifications and Additions
Hoyas of N.E. New Guinea
Malaysian Hoya Species
Philippine Hoya Species
Samoan Hoya Species
The Ganges Hoyas
The Hoya Handbook

8. Smithsonian Libraries

Smithsonian Libraries Translation Series

9. San Diego Zoo Global

Bulletins of the Zoological Society of San Diego

10. Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Atala

11. The Lepidoptera Research Foundation, Inc.

The Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera

12. Yale University

Field Notebooks: Beecher, Charles Emerson
Field Notebooks: Schuchert, Charles

13. Geological Institute RAS, Research Organization of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Bulletin of Commission for study of the Quaternary
Transactions of the Geological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1956-1991)
Transactions of the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1992-present)
Transactions of the Institute of Geological Sciences (1938-1956)
Travaux de l'Institut geologique de l'Academie des Sciences de l'URSS

14. The Royal Society of Victoria

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria

15. Tennessee Native Plant Society

Tennessee Native Plant Society Newsletter

16. Carnegie Institution for Science

Monograph Series

17. Western Australian Herbarium, Department of Parks and Wildlife

Kingia
Nuytsia: Western Australia's Journal of Systematic Botany
Western Australian Herbarium Research Notes

18. British Trust for Entomology

Journal of the Society for British Entomology
Transactions of the Society for British Entomology

19. Smithsonian Institution

Hawaiian biogeography: evolution on a hot spot archipelago

BHL wishes to thank the many individuals and organizations who have so generously allowed their publications to be digitized and made available to the world. If there's a book or journal you would like to see in BHL, please let us know!

And as always, don't forget to follow BHL on Facebook, Twitter (@BioDivLibrary), Instagram, and Tumblr.

In the fall of 1840, in Worcester, Massachusetts, two dozen attendees of the Worcester Agricultural Society's Annual Cattle Show put on a display of local fruits and flowers. The attention it received led to the creation, in 1842, of the Worcester County Horticultural Society (WCHS), the third oldest active society of its kind in the United States.

The logo of the WCHS, from Transactions, 1912
(image in the public domain,
from Wikipedia)

Today, the WCHS is based at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, which it established in 1986. While many things have changed since the era of its founding 175 years ago, the WCHS continues to "inspire the use and creation of horticulture to improve lives, enrich communities and strengthen commitment to the natural world." The history of this effort is documented in the Transactions of the Worcester County Horticultural Society, which is available in BHL's collection through the work of the Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature project. Thank you to the WCHS for sharing this valuable publication with BHL and its users.

History of the WCHS

"It is truth, TRUTH—and the Universe was framed to corroborate it—that of all employments, none is better than the Culture of the Earth, none more independent, none more pleasant, none more worthy the dignity of Man!"

-George Jaques, Transactions of the Worcester County Horticultural Society, p.11 (1847)

On September 19, 1840, several men gathered for the purpose of establishing a society that would do for horticulture what the Worcester Agricultural Society had done for agriculture: the "mutual improvement in [its] theoretical and practical branches." The Agricultural Society's Annual Cattle Show was chosen as the venue for an initial exhibition. Prior to the show itself, ads were placed in area newspapers soliciting contributions from the gardens and orchards of the public. The exhibit opened the day before the Cattle Show, to popular acclaim and the chagrin of the elder society, which was in danger of being upstaged. A host of new members was admitted (membership was $1), and the nascent horticultural society entered a period of steady growth.

The "Surpasse," one of the peaches on display at
the Exhibition of 1846, from
The Peaches of New York (1917)

From the beginning, regular exhibitions were the main occupation of the WCHS. Strict rules governed the creation of these exhibits and the conduct of the committees appointed to organize them. Nevertheless, George Jaques lamented in the Transactions (1847):

It may pour balm into some wounds, in certain quarters—wounds which Time—that physician, so eminent for the thorough course that he pursues with his patients—may have failed of healing, to acknowledge the sinfulness of some of the Committees, in venturing upon an infringement of the above Rules, in so far, as to procure the concurrent testimony of the palate, as well as that of the eye, in regard to the character of the subjects of their examination.

What Mr. Jaques was admitting, however obliquely, is that committee members were tasting the wares meant for display—bad behavior that, according to the Report on Fruit for the Annual Exhibition of 1847, was not evident in the public:

Notwithstanding the hall was constantly thronged with visitors, and many hundreds of samples of beautiful and tempting fruit within reach of every one, yet all seemed to feel and act as if it was placed there to be examined with the eye only. No instance of pilfering, and but little unnecessary handling of the fruit, was known to occur.

The first Horticultural Hall, from
Transactions, 1891-1892
(image in the public domain,
from Wikipedia)

In 1851, the WCHS built Horticultural Hall, its first permanent residence, on Front Street in the heart of Worcester. Horticultural Hall served as the home of the society until 1928, when the society built a larger structure—with the same name—on Elm Street, just a few blocks away. The second hall served the society until 1983, when it purchased a 132-acre parcel of land in Boylston. Here, at Tower Hill Farm, it created Tower Hill Botanic Garden, its present home.

Exhibits were the primary activity of the WCHS in its first century. While many of the varieties of fruits and vegetables named in the Transactions are no longer familiar, a few have become staples in the U.S. The Report on Vegetables for the Annual Exhibition of 1847 notes the presence of a novel cultivar:

A solitary specimen of the Cauliflower, as a peculiar species of the Cabbage, was introduced by Mr. D.W. Lincoln, probably to remind the spectators of that esculent, which is said by a recent author, to have "furnished epicures of all countries with some of their greatest luxuries."

Similarly, the Committee was pleased to see common potatoes, which were not yet a mainstay of the American diet.

In addition to detailed accounts of each year's Exhibition, the Transactions records the effects of larger historical and climatological events on horticulture: the Annual Report of 1864 reports that owing to the outbreak of the American Civil War, there was no Annual Exhibition in 1861; the Transactions of 1942 documents the effects of rationing during World War II; and the Report of Judge of Plants and Flowers of 1963 records the effects of the severe drought that gripped Massachusetts for most of that decade.

Photo of the Systematic Garden at Tower Hill
(image in the public domain, from Wikipedia)

The Transactions also documents the decline of estate gardens (and the exhibitions they supported) in the 1940s commensurate with the rise of industrial agriculture, large-scale co-ops, and decreasing barriers to foreign imports. Changing with the times, the WCHS eventually shifted its focus to the smaller gardens that most people cultivate today. Tower Hill Botanic Garden still hosts flower shows and grows vegetables and fruit, but it also offers year-round educational programming, including a variety of gardening classes.

In the preface to the Transactions of 1847, George Jaques wrote, "The Horticultural Association, it should be borne in mind, is still but a nursery plant, and these few leaves can give only a faint idea of what its foliage, flowers, and ripened fruits may be in the years to come." He could not have imagined that 170 years later, the work of the WCHS continues, and that the "nursery plant" has become a garden.

Patrick Randall
Community Manager
Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature

Reference

"Farming in the 1940s."Wessels Living History Farm. Accessed April 19, 2017. http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/farminginthe1940s.html

"History and Mission."Tower Hill Botanic Garden. Accessed April 19, 2017. http://www.towerhillbg.org/history-and-mission/

"Life in the year 1842, when the Worcester County Horticultural Society began." Tower Hill Botanic Garden. (March 1, 2017). http://www.towerhillbg.org/2017/03/01/year-1842-founding-worcester-horticultural-society/

This Earth Day weekend, the Earth Optimism Summit in Washington, D.C. celebrated conservation successes and fueled discussions about how to expand conservation impact. Organized by the Smithsonian, the three-day event (21-23 April) brought together representatives from a wide array of fields for a series of presentations relaying over 100 conservation success stories. The Summit also included a public Innovation Commons event featuring exhibits showcasing the ways that a variety of organizations and projects support conservation and help protect biodiversity.

BHL booth at the Earth Optimism Summit in Washington, DC, 21-23 April 2017. Image credit: Grace Costantino.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library participated in the Innovation Commons with a booth highlighting the many ways that BHL helps save biodiversity by supporting research around the world. Over the three days of the Summit, staff from BHL, Smithsonian Libraries, and the Library of Congress (both BHL Member libraries) shared BHL resources and impact stories with over 250 visitors. As the Innovation Commons event was open to the public, booth staff interacted not only with Summit attendees, but also members of the public, including participants of the March for Science on 22 April.

Amy Zhang (left; BHL intern at Library of Congress) and Carolyn Sheffield (right; BHL Program Manager) at the BHL booth on 22 April 2017. Image Credit: Martin Kalfatovic.

Using posters showcasing BHL's impact on conservation and user stories from around the world, as well as through hands-on demos using the laptop and ipads at the booth, staff introduced many new people to BHL's collections, tools and services. Many visitors expressed awe and appreciation for the wealth of biodiversity resources available to them through BHL, with more than one person expressing disbelief that they had previously been unaware of BHL's existence.

Tomoko Steen (left; Senior Research Specialist, Science, Technology, and Business Division, Library of Congress) and Martin Kalfatovic (right; BHL Program Director) at the BHL booth on 22 April. Image credit: Martin Kalfatovic.

BHL also partnered with Scientific Collections International for booth content. SciColl is a global consortium devoted to promoting the use and impact of object-based scientific collections across disciplines. Last September, BHL participated in SciColl's Food Security Workshop at the National Agricultural Library, which brought together stakeholders to talk about the ways that scientific collections (including literature) can support food security. Booth staff distributed brochures summarizing the results of this workshop.

Bonnie White (left; Library Technician, Smithsonian Libraries), Carolyn Sheffield (center; BHL Program Manager) and Grace Costantino (right; BHL Outreach and Communication Manager) at the BHL booth on 21 April. Image credit: Barbara Ferry.

We would like to extend a special thanks to each volunteer who helped share BHL's free and open collections with Earth Optimism visitors. Smithsonian Libraries staff at the booth included Kristen Bullard (Librarian), Barbara Ferry (Head, Natural and Physical Sciences Department, SIL), Gil Taylor (Supervisory Librarian), Bonnie White (Library Technician), and Sue Zwicker (Librarian). Library of Congress staff at the booth included Tomoko Steen (Senior Research Specialist, Science, Technology and Business Division) and Amy Zhang (BHL intern at LoC). BHL staff at the booth included Grace Costantino (BHL Outreach and Communication Manager), Martin Kalfatovic (BHL Program Director and Associate Director, Digital Programs and Initiatives, SIL), and Carolyn Sheffield (BHL Program Manager).

Grace Costantino at the BHL booth on 23 April. Image credit: Sue Zwicker.

We were thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in the Earth Optimism Summit and demonstrate the ways that BHL's free resources can help support conservation efforts around the world!

Martin Kalfatovic (left) and Carolyn Sheffield (right) at the BHL booth on 22 April. Photo credit: Martin Kalfatovic.

By Gretchen Rings
Reference & Interlibrary Loan Librarian
The Field Museum

On November 5, 1950, The Field Museum [the Chicago Museum of Natural History at the time] Curator of Mammalogy Colin Sanborn received an extraordinary letter, which began as follows:

Dear Colin,

I should like to make a rather unusual request of you. Some twenty-five years ago I gave the then Field Museum several specimens from my bird collection. Included among them was a habitat group of Kirtland's Warblers, consisting of the two adults and four nestlings in the nest, mounted by Ashley Hine...I know that the Museum used to have souvenir photograph postcards of many of its mounted groups on sale to the public. Could you find out for me whether such a photo was ever made of this Kirtland's Warbler group, and if so, let me know how I can get one?

It wasn't the request itself that was so unusual: individuals (or their descendants) frequently inquired about a specimen donated to the museum. It was the letter's author, in this case, that made it stand out: Nathan Leopold, Jr. Prior to becoming part of the infamous duo Leopold and Loeb, convicted for kidnapping and murdering Bobby Franks, a 14-year-old neighbor, Leopold had been a birder and ornithologist. Writing from prison in Joliet, Illinois, he hoped to receive a photograph of a group of specimens he'd donated as a very young man.

In addition to specimens from Loeb--The Field Museum also has a Cooper's hawk and a Praying Mantis--the Library owns one of only a couple of known extant copies of a booklet called Spring Migration Notes of the Chicago Area that Leopold helped compile. He was just 15-years-old at the time the booklet was published.

Watson, James D, George Porter Lewis, and Nathan Freudenthal Leopold. 1920. Spring migration notes of the Chicago area. [Chicago]: [G.W. Lewis Pub. Co.]. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47497174. Digitized by the Field Museum of Natural History Library.

Joshua Engel, a research assistant in the Field Museum's Integrative Research Center writes, "This little booklet has so much history, it's hard to know even where to begin. Let's start with the fact that the first author, James D. Watson, is the father of one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, also named James D. Watson, who along with Francis Crick is credited with the discovery of the structure of DNA. But that's the least of it. The third author is even more intriguing. A budding young ornithologist, Nathan Leopold would spend the bulk of his adult life in prison for the murder of Bobby Franks, one of the most famous crimes of the 20th century."

James D. Watson the younger describes how his father met Leopold, "It was in Jackson Park in 1919 that Dad had met the extraordinarily talented but socially awkward sixteen-year-old University of Chicago student Nathan Leopold, who was equally obsessive about spotting rare birds. In June 1923, Leopold's wealthy father financed a birding expedition so Nathan and my dad could go to the jack pine barrens above Flint, Michigan, in search of the Kirtland warbler. In their pursuit of this rarest of all warblers, they were accompanied by their fellow Chicago ornithologists George Porter Lewis and Sidney Stein, and in addition by Nathan's boyhood friend Richard Loeb, whose family helped form the growing Sears, Roebuck store empire."

The Field Museum's copy of Spring Migration Notes of The Chicago Area, published in 1920, is now stored in the Mary W. Runnells Rare Book Room. Because of its historical value, it was added to the Biodiversity Heritage Library, including the type-written, hand-signed letter on page four from young Nathan Leopold to Ruthven Deane, a leading ornithologist of his time and a resident of Chicago, who eventually donated part of his collection of specimens to The Field Museum (as Leopold did when he went to jail). The cover of this copy even says "Compliments of the authors," presumably written by Leopold.

Watson, James D, George Porter Lewis, and Nathan Freudenthal Leopold. 1920. Spring migration notes of the Chicago area. [Chicago]: [G.W. Lewis Pub. Co.]. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47497172. Digitized by the Field Museum of Natural History Library.

Aside from the fascinating backstory, there's the actual information that the booklet contains, a priceless indication of what the birdlife of Chicago was like in the early part of the 20th century. At the time, many wetland birds that are now rare or altogether gone as breeding birds were still common, an indication of the destruction of wetlands in the Chicago area over the last century. This includes birds like Black Tern (about which the authors say "Breeds commonly"), King Rail ("Common summer resident"), and Wilson's Phalarope ("Nests in the Calumet region").

On the other hand, grassland birds were already declining, with many formerly common birds becoming rare. For example, Greater Prairie-Chicken was "A formerly abundant permanent resident; now rather rare," Northern Bobwhite was "A formerly very common permanent resident, but now rather rare," and Loggerhead Shrike, which then was known as Migrant Shrike, was a "Fairly common summer resident." These days you have to go hundreds of miles from Chicago to find Loggerhead Shrike or a prairie-chicken.

Additionally, there are spring arrival dates for every species each year from 1913-1920.

Colin Sanborn's reply to Leopold must have been disappointing. He writes on 20 November 1950: "Your group of Kirtland's warblers were never photographed and in fact have never been on exhibition." Sanborn goes on to write about his own activities in a breezy, newsy tone, e.g., birding, giving talks to a local ornithological society, etc. In other words, no mention of the fact that the letter he's responding to is signed by infamous prisoner #9306-D.

Leopold spent 33 years in prison until his parole in 1958. Active in the Natural History Society of Puerto Rico, Leopold traveled throughout the island for birdwatching and in 1963 he published Checklist of Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. He died of natural causes in Puerto Rico in 1971 at the age of 66.

As for the Kirtland warblers--happily, they are making a comeback. According to Joshua Engel, "The species has made an incredible comeback, from a low of about 200 singing males in the early 1970s to over 2000 today. It's likely to be removed from the endangered species list in the next few years."

Kirtland Warbler specimen, Field Museum Zoology collection. Photo Courtesy of Joshua Engel.

References

Engel, Joshua. (May 18, 2015). "History and birds come together: 'Spring Migration Notes' from 1920 and its famous authors." The Field Museum of Natural History, https://www.fieldmuseum.org/science/blog/history-and-birds-come-together-spring-migration-notes-1920-and-its-famous-authors (accessed December 16, 2016).
Swanson, Steven. 1997. Chicago Days: 150 Defining Moments in the Life of a Great City. Chicago: Cantigny First Division Foundation.
Watson. James D. 2007. Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Wikipedia contributors, "James Watson,"Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Watson&oldid=755145717 (accessed December 16, 2016).
Wikipedia contributors, "Leopold and Loeb,"Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leopold_and_Loeb&oldid=754973757 (accessed December 15, 2016).

By Randy Smith
Metadata librarian and Senior image technician, Peter H. Raven Library, Missouri Botanical Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG), a partner in the Biodiversity Heritage Library Field Notes Project, has spent the last year digitizing the notebooks of George Engelmann.

George Engelmann assisted Henry Shaw, MBG’s founder, in establishing the Garden’s research arm and corresponding library. He arrived in Belleville, Illinois, sometime in the 1830s but soon moved to St. Louis where he set up practice as a physician. In the 1840s, Engelmann began corresponding with—and became a close friend and colleague of—Asa Gray at Harvard University, one of the best known botanists in the United States. This relationship, combined with his passion for plants of the newly opened American west, would lead to Engelmann becoming the principle coordinator for botanical collecting west of the Mississippi River.

Figure 1 from notebook 1, folder 1. George Engelmann : botanical notebook 1. Cistaceae, Violaceae. [Undated]. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40019030

Setting up a trifecta of American botanical exploration with Gray at Harvard and John Torrey at the Smithsonian, Engelmann became an avid and knowledgeable botanist as he corresponded with Gray and Torrey to direct various westward explorers. He collected over 98,000 botanical specimens which were donated to MBG upon his death. Combined with 62,000 botanical specimens purchased in 1857 for Shaw from the Bernhardi Herbarium, originally in Germany, these two collections formed the foundation of the MBG herbarium. Engelmann also helped establish the St. Louis Academy of Sciences.

The BHL Field Notes Project is the third time George Engelmann’s collection has been accessed for scanning. In 2010, MBG received a grant to complete a project called Digitizing Engelmann’s Legacy, and another in 2013 to digitize Engelmann’s correspondence. With this latest project, MBG is able to provide access to much of Engelmann’s botanical notebooks.

Figure 2 from notebook 25, folder 9. George Engelmann : botanical notebook 25 : Cuscuta. Box 11: Folder 9: Cuscuta. (1860-1875). http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/52191022

The notebooks were dismantled sometime in the past and housed within folders placed in boxes. His 58 notebooks are spread out over 27 boxes and comprise over 14,000 individual items. Not wanting to waste paper, Engelmann often wrote his notes on the back of correspondences, prescription slips, official documents, etc. Among his copious note taking are many botanical drawings likely depicting the specimens as he saw them.

Please feel free to browse Engelmann’s notebooks as they continue to be digitized and uploaded to the Biodiversity Heritage Library and Botanicus.

The BHL Field Notes Project is funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).

For two days in April, a group of librarians, archivists, developers and other members of the digital library community came together in Chicago for DPLAfest, an annual conference organized by the Digital Public Library of America. Focuses of this year’s conference included collaboration across institutions, public engagement, social justice, metadata quality, and the use and reuse of open access content. The BHL has been a content hub for DPLA since its launch in 2013, and we were excited to participate in this year’s conference.

The conference was hosted by the Chicago Public Library, the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Chicago Collections, and the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS). The CPL’s beautiful Harold Washington Library Center served as the location of the conference.

Members of the DPLA community in the Harold Washington Library Center's winter garden

In addition to attending our colleagues’ presentations and workshops, members of the BHL community were part of the schedule. On day one, Adriana Marroquin, project manager of the BHL Field Notes Project, was part of a group of lightning rounds held in the library’s auditorium. The group covered a compelling array of topics, including collecting oral histories, digitizing scrapbooks, tracking the use of digital content, and the reuse of open access material for art installations and cultural events. (A full list of the topics is available on the DPLA schedule.)

The lightning round group on day one of DPLAfest included
a presentation on the BHL Field Notes Project

The BHL lightning talk centered on the Field Notes Project’s collaborative nature, its goals and progress, and the way project partners work together to overcome some of the particular challenges involved. With 11 partners across the Unites States, we have to handle several different time zones, workflows tailored to each institution’s needs, and unique field note collections. The project’s solutions to these challenges could be summarized in four key points: embracing digital communication tools to counteract geographic dispersal, being flexible to accommodate each partner’s needs, being consistent in our work, and tapping into the built-in group knowledge and experience that comes with a collaborative project. Many of these build off of BHL’s day-to-day solutions to the challenges of a global consortium, and can also be applied to collaborative projects of any size and topic.

Adriana Marroquin, project manager of the BHL Field Notes Project, presenting at DPLAfest 2017

On day two, mentors and residents from the "Foundations to Actions: Extending Innovations in Digital Libraries in Partnership with NDSR Learners" project gave an hour-long presentation to DPLAfest attendees. All five of the BHL NDSR residents – Alicia Esquivel of the Chicago Botanic Garden, Marissa Kings of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Pamela McClanahan of Smithsonian Libraries, Katie Mika of Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Ariadne Rehbein of Missouri Botanical Garden – were all in attendance.

L-R: Marissa Kings, Leora Siegel, Trish Rose-Sandler,
Pamela McClanahan, Alicia Esquivel, Katie Mika, Ariadne Rehbein

The BHL-NDSR presentation touched on the DPLAfest themes of digital libraries and open access content and collaboration across types of institutions. Mentors Trish Rose-Sandler (Missouri Botanical Garden) and Leora Siegel (Chicago Botanic Garden) introduced the BHL, NDSR, the purpose of the program and its timeline, and their roles as mentors. Next, each Resident had 7 minutes to explain their core goals, challenges, activities, and context for their work. The Residents managed to hone all the complexities and research they have conducted into pithy talks that were clear to folks totally new to BHL and their projects. Before the day of the presentation, they practiced together in a study room at the Harold Washington Library, sharing feedback and reducing nerves. On the day of, it was wonderful to interact with the audience (laughter, questions, and applause!) as well as speak with some attendees from the NDSR community! View the final presentation on the DPLA site.

The BHL NDSR residents answer questions from the audience

The BHL would like to thank DPLA and our hosts in Chicago for bringing this group of digital library professionals together to interact face-to-face. We appreciate the opportunity to learn from our fellow digital library colleagues, hear about other amazing projects, and to discuss how we accomplish our own projects through collaboration and team work. We can’t wait for next year!

Further reading:
DPLAfest recap on the NDSR at BHL blog
Biodiversity Heritage Library at DPLAfest 2015

The BHL Field Notes Project is funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).

The "Foundations to Actions: Extending Innovations in Digital Libraries in Partnership with NDSR Learners" project is a National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) program led by BHL and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

By Laurel Byrnes
BHL Outreach Volunteer

Portrait of Ole Worm (Credit: Wellcome Library, London; Creative Commons)

Ole Worm (1588-1654) was the first, and most well-known, collector in Scandinavia during the Renaissance. In his homeland, Ole was attributed as the founder of the modern disciplines of archaeology, museology, philology, ethnology, and folklore. Ole’s cabinet of wonder, documented in a catalog of its holdings, Museum Wormianum (which we highlight in this post), was the foundation for what would become Denmark’s National Museum.

Ole was born in Arhus, Denmark, the son of a mayor, and went to grammar school in his hometown and then in Germany, after which he moved to Emmerich on the Rhine in 1603 to study at a Jesuit school. He returned to Denmark but set out again in 1605 on a “grand tour” of Europe, visiting important cities, museums, and centers of learning; taking such a grand tour was popular at the time among the sons of nobleman and the newly rich. While on his grand tour, Ole studied philosophy, anatomy, medicine and theology, acted as a private tutor, and received a doctorate in medicine in 1611 for writing a dissertation on almost all known diseases (at the time) and their cures.

It was while Ole was on his grand tour of European cities of learning and culture that he began collecting objects that would come to inhabit his cabinet of wonder--also interchangeably called cabinets of curiosity during the period, or as he referred to it in a letter, his cabinet of naturalia. (For more on cabinets of wonder, see our blog post on Ferrante Imperato and his cabinet of wonder here). Ole visited a well-known collector in Italy in 1609, went to Germany and saw a famous art collection, and in Enkhuizen, the famous collector Bernhard Paludanus gave Ole a coffee bean and an exotic reed--both objects obtained through foreign travels and international trade. Cabinets of wonder during this period especially valued the exotic, objects that came from America or other faraway lands that were now accessible through foreign trade and colonialist empire-building.

Lapis sceleton serpentis, also known as "snake-stone", found in the section on stones in Museum Wormianumhere.
In the 1600s, some thought snake-stones from India could heal venomous snake bites, and snake-stones are attributed as the divine stones Homer mentioned in The Iliad that healed Philoctete's wound.

Ole continued to correspond with various European collectors who were famous for their pursuits of knowledge and virtue. How does collecting objects make one virtuous? The pursuit of knowledge was a virtue, and collecting physical objects aided in pursuing knowledge.

According to the philosophy of the time, by collecting physical things that reflected God’s creative powers, one was highlighting God’s power. And those things that were once considered monstrous in the medieval period--Siamese twins, deformed fetuses, strange creatures--now represented God’s omnipotent ability to intervene with creation and produce wondrous rarities worthy of gazing upon and studying in cabinets of wonder.

Since Ole lived during a period after the Reformation (a break with the ways of the medieval church), scholars and wealthier individuals were able to establish themselves as creators of knowledge, collectors and curators of cabinets of wonder, studying by means of a proto-empiricism where knowledge was gained by physical experience with an object (rather than the later definition of empiricism as knowledge gained through experimentation).

Ole Worm's cabinet of wonder, from the frontispiece in Museum Wormianum. The table in the center of the room, where the name of the book is inscribed, is where Ole would have taken down objects for himself, and visitors, to handle and observe.
(View the image here.)

After Ole returned from his grand tour, he took a position at the University of Copenhagen and was the chair of pedagogy, Greek and physics, consecutively, and in 1624 became a professor of medicine. Around 1620 he began creating his museum, “Museum Wormianum”.

In its nascent form, the museum contained the curiosities Ole collected on his grand tour, mostly geological and biological, along with cultural items. The majority of his museums holdings, or “wonders”, were donated to Ole from other European collectors whom he met and with whom he corresponded and sometimes asked for items. By the time Ole died in 1654, his museum was held in high regard and contemporaries wrote that the museum had wonderful, curious and odd rarities that were visited by famous and royal people from all over Europe.

What people in the 17th century, and prior, thought was a unicorn horn.
(View the image in Museum Wormianumhere.)

During the period, people believed they could purchase "unicorn" horns to use for medicinal purposes. Having never seen a horn attached to a skull, Ole was skeptical. When presented with this "unicorn skull" by another collector, Ole determined that it likely belonged to a narwhal, and he was correct.
(View the image in Museum Wormianumhere.)

Illustration of a narwhal, whimsical but not completely accurate, in Museum Wormianum, which can be viewed here.

The reason for collecting objects from the natural world, as well as curiosities and antiquities, was to enrich visitors’ own knowledge. In 1639, Ole wrote of his museum and its “curiosities” saying:

“I have collected various things on my journeys abroad, and from India and other very remote places I have been brought various things: samples of soil, rocks, metals, plants, fish, birds, and land-animals, that I conserve well with the goal of, along with a short presentation of the various things’ history, also being able to present my audience with the things themselves to touch with their own hands and to see with their own eyes, so that they may themselves judge how that which is said fits with the things, and can acquire a more intimate knowledge of them all.”

During this great period of collecting, a new form of literature was created: the catalog. Collectors used catalogs of their items to promote their collections and display their own wisdom. Ole published two catalogs (one in 1642 and one in 1645) with inventories of the wonders in his cabinet of curiosity. However, it was the third catalog, which came to be the version of Museum Wormianumwe explore today, published posthumously in 1655 that contained the most information, as well as engravings.

The catalog is divided into four categories: minerals, plants, animals and artificialia (man-made objects); the books go in ascending order from “lowest” form of life, minerals, to “highest” form of life, animals, with the fourth category, artificialia, existing outside that context of the three kingdoms of nature.

Man is cataloged with “animals” in Book III, along with divine monstrosities such as deformed fetuses, a giant tooth and giant skull believed to have come from an ancient race of giant humanoids. Curiously, mummies, although they are human remains, are cataloged with “minerals” in Book I.

Book II deals with plants, and includes a section on tree “monstrosities”, so-called because they were thought to resemble animals or other objects.

Horse mandible around which a tree has grown, found in Book III, on Animals (including man), in Museum Wormianum.
(View the image here.)

Book IV, De artificiosis, discusses man-made objects in the collection, including both contemporary-but-exotic items like bows, arrows and tobacco pipes from America, and antiquities like Roman and Danish jewelry and metal weapons from India and Norway.

Two of the most amazing man-made creations were wooden automata created by contemporaries: mus rotis actus, a wooden mouse covered with a mouse hide that operated by means of internal clockworks; and statua librata pondere mobilis, a human automaton made of wood with flexible limbs that could imitate human movement by means of a wheel crank. This figure was dressed in clothes believed to be worn by native peoples in America and given a spear to hold, and is clearly visible in the frontispiece to the book in the middle of the image of Ole’s cabinet of wonder (see image below).

If one views the objects in the frontispiece to Museum Wormianum from right to left, the order of objects mirrors the order of the same objects as they are listed in the books that comprise this work.

Humanoid automata, visible in the frontispiece to Museum Wormianumhere, could run around and pick things up. It was dressed to represent what the creator thought native people in America looked like, and held a spear.

Ole Worm inspired future generations of collectors and multitudes of visitors to his cabinet of wonder by showing them curiosities they likely never would have seen otherwise. For Ole and many of his contemporaries, these items were outward symbols of the divine creative powers of God and of the powerful knowledge and virtue possessed by the scholar who collected them.

Interesting Facts:

Ole was considered a great academe and writer in Europe after publishing a compendium on Danish runestones in 1643, called Danicorum Monumentorum Libri Sex. To create this work, he sent artists around the Danish kingdom to accurately sketch the monuments and their engraved runes.

In attempting to create a book of medieval Icelandic sagas, Ole worked with a prominent Icelandic historian, Arngrimur Jonsson; when both men had no luck finding the sagas, Arngriumur told Ole that he heard of an old woman who lived on a distant coast who knew about the medieval sagas and could perhaps retell them, and that they could send a poet to her to have them written down. There is no record of any success in this venture.

During his grand tour of Europe, Ole had an autograph book which he filled with the signatures of famous cultural figures, including professors and dignitaries, whom he met during his travels.

Shop Objects of Wonder in the BHL Store

Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosity is one of the many wonders you can find in our Objects of Wonder BHL Store collection.

Shop today to bring some curiosities home with you.

100% of the proceeds from the sale of products in the store are used to digitize more books for BHL. Learn how these books help save biodiversity.

References:

Barroso, M.D.S. (2013). Bezoar stones, magic, science and art. In Duffin, C.J., Moody, R.T.J., & Gardner-Thorpe, C. (Eds.), A history of geology and medicine (pp. 193-208). London: The Geological Society.

Grice, G. (2015). Cabinet of curiosities: Collecting and understanding the wonders of the natural world. New York, N.Y.: Workman Publishing.

Hafstein, V. (2003). Bodies of knowledge: Ole Worm & collecting in late Renaissance Scandinavia. Ethnologia Europaea 33(1), 5-20.

Hoskin, D. (2015). Born on this day: Ole Worm -- collector extraordinaire. Victoria and Albert Museum Blog. Retrieved from http://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/creating-new-europe-1600-1800-galleries/born-on-this-day-ole-worm-collector-extraordinaire

Meier, A. (2013). Ole Worm returns: An iconic 17th century curiosity cabinet is obsessively recreated. Atlas Obscura. Retrieved from http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ole-worm-cabinet

Richards, S. (2012). The world in a cabinet, 1600s. The Scientist. Retrieved from http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31897/title/The-World-in-a-Cabinet--1600s/

In the early 20th century, the British Colonial Office and the Discovery Committee of the British Government undertook a series of major investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Hemisphere. Using ship- and shore-based equipment (including whaling stations on South Georgia Island operated by the UK and other nations), these Discovery Investigations, as they were called, significantly advanced human knowledge of whale morphology and ecology.

The results of the Investigations were presented within the 37 volume series entitled the Discovery Reports. Groundbreaking for their time, these Reports are still important for cetacean research today.

"The data collected and published in the Reports were unique because they represented, in every case, a one-time, time-stamped opportunity to record the precise dimensions, weights, gut contents and many other details gathered as part of whaling activities," explains Dr. Nicholas Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).

Mackintosh NA, Wheeler JFG (1929) Southern blue and fin whales. Discovery Reports 1:257—510. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/15917732. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Pyenson has used the data in the Reports to inform several recent studies. For example, he and colleague Simon Sponberg used data on total length and adult body mass for Southern blue and fin whales, published in 1929 as part of the Discovery Reports, to help develop and test regression methods for reconstructing the body size of extinct whales. Their findings, published in 2011 in the Journal of Mammalian Evolution, provided major insight into studying the evolution of cetacean body size.

Fin whale fetus. Laws RM (1959) The foetal growth rates of whales with special reference to the fin whale Balaenoptera physalus Linn. Discovery Reports 29: 281–308. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5569026. Digitized by MBLWHOI Library.

More recently, while researching the evolution of whale hearing, Maya Yamato and Pyenson used data on the fetal growth rates of whales, published in 1959 as part of the Discovery Reports, to gain insight into the maturation of the ear in baleen and toothed whales. Their research, published in 2015 in PLOS ONE, traces the development of an evolutionarily novel feature in cetaceans - the use of an acoustic funnel, rather than an ear canal, for hearing.

"The historic information in the Reports is so valuable for a variety of questions about the evolution, anatomy, and ecology of large whales," asserts Pyenson.

Dr. Nicholas Pyenson. Selfie from a seakayak in Sitka Sound, Alaska.

Pyenson has been studying marine mammals and other marine vertebrates for over 15 years. He's published pioneering research on the evolution and diversification of marine mammalian lineages and has used revolutionary techniques like 3D modeling to uncover new insights into the anatomy and transformation of this group. He's even shared some of his research during past BHL-related events, including live webcasts for the #FWTrueLove and #FossilStories campaigns.

Pyenson's scientific achievements, including the use of emerging digital tools to expand public access to fossils, earned him the coveted Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). He is the first NMNH scientist to receive this award, which is the "highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers."

While Pyenson has embraced many novel research techniques, the historic data found in publications like the Discovery Reportsunderpins much of his work. Thanks to the digital open access provided by BHL, it's easier than ever to integrate these resources into modern research processes.

"As a free, mobile archive for natural history literature, BHL is ideal for 21st century research, which can happen on the field, in a museum, or at a coffee shop, as long as there’s internet connectivity," lauds Pyenson.

Pyenson began using BHL nearly ten years ago, and over the past decade, it has had a major impact on his - and his colleagues' - research.

"BHL supercharges the speed and efficiency of scholarly research, especially in the natural sciences where old literature sometimes contains the only information on a topic, taxon, geographic locality or collector," says Pyenson. "And because BHL is open-access, I know firsthand that many of my international colleagues have dramatically better access to the literature covered in its database than more recent journals locked behind pay-walls."

Pyenson uses BHL at least once a week, obtaining descriptions, measurements, and detailed views of morphology on fossil or modern specimens. The usability of the website, and the fidelity and quality of the scans, allow him to access and download information that is critical to his work.

"I think BHL's interface is really wonderful. The links are crisp and easy to find and share. I especially enjoy the selectivity of being able to download just a few pages or only a specific article from an issue."

Dr. Nicholas Pyenson at Cuverville Island, Antarctica. Photo credit: Martha Stewart.

Given the significant impact that BHL has had on Pyenson's work, he is anxious that more people be made aware of the vast abundance - and importance - of this free and open access collection.

"We need to get the word out. Old literature matters," asserts Pyenson.

And matter it does. As Dr. Pyenson's experience demonstrates, by providing a wealth of data on species morphology, phylogeny, and ecology, historic literature forms the foundation for the investigation of modern and ancient biodiversity. By making this content globally accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, BHL is helping to advance scientific research and inspire discovery of the natural world.

You can help support global research through a tax-deductible donation to BHL. With your help, we can continue to democratize access to information about biodiversity and empower scientific research on a global scale.

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