Clik here to view.
A Basic Guide to Rare Book Research
In my job as the manager of the Library at Museums Victoria (Australia), I am frequently required to conduct rare book research for programs, displays, online projects, or to establish the provenance...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Many Buntings? Revisiting the Relationship Between Linnaeus and Catesby
Not many birds bedazzle as thoroughly as the adult male Painted Bunting. No matter how many you’ve seen or how often, every one remains a source of startlement, whether it is emerging shyly from a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Smithsonian Libraries, BHL, and My Research on South Asian Mammals
I’m a Deep Time – Peter Buck Fellow in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History where I study the ecology and evolution of prehistoric vertebrates,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Celebrating the Career of Dr. Nancy E. Gwinn, Retiring Director of...
This month, the Smithsonian celebrates the career of Dr. Nancy E. Gwinn, retiring Director of Smithsonian Libraries. Gwinn's Smithsonian career began in 1984 when she joined the Libraries, becoming...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Museum in a Manuscript
In this day and age, science is a serious business pursued by experts who are mostly employed by universities or research facilities. These rational organisations like to trace their lineages back to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Introducing the CETAF E-SCORE Award for Excellence in Research Based on...
The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) is launching a new initiative to reward early-career researchers, within the fields of taxonomy, biodiversity and geodiversity science, who base...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Finding Life in Dead Plants: Exploring Herbaria Through BHL
Visit any major botanical research institute today and you’ll find a herbarium, or collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens are used to identify plants, to track where and when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“I took care to get the true character of the animal”– The Zoological...
The Zoological Sketches are two volumes of 100 plates published between 1857 and 1867. They show particularly rare animals from Regent's Park in London, which Joseph Wolf captured in watercolours and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Flora Graeca: “The Most Costly and Beautiful Book Devoted to Any Flora”
John Sibthorp's Flora Graeca (1806-1840) has been described as "the most costly and beautiful book devoted to any flora" [1]. Dedicated to the plants of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, only 30...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Earth Optimism Wikipedia Editing Workshop on Endangered Species at...
Help improve information in Wikipedia about endangered species as part of the Earth Optimism Wikipedia Workshop on Endangered Species hosted by the Smithsonian Libraries (Washington, D.C.) with support...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Plants and the People Who Name Them: The International Plant Names Index and BHL
At the end of the twentieth century, the The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The Harvard University Herbaria, and The Australian National Herbarium began collaboration on an ambitious project—to create an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Annotated Copy of Butterflies of Australia by Waterhouse and Lyell (1914)
Published in 1914, Butterflies of Australia by Gustavus Athol Waterhouse and George Lyell was the first comprehensive work on Australian butterflies to appear in Western scientific literature. It is a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
GBIF to Host a Virtual Workshop on “Advancing the Catalogue of the World’s...
On behalf of numerous partners and stakeholders, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) will convene a virtual workshop and international consultation in March and April 2020 with the aim...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Writing Women Back Into the History of STEM”: BHL Supports Research on Women...
In 1868, one of the first serious botanical works in Canada was published. Entitled Canadian Wild Flowers, the work treated nearly three dozen of “the most remarkable” wildflowers found in Canada. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
BHL Resources to Support Distance Learning
BHL’s digital library provides free and open online access to over 250,000 volumes from the 15th-21st centuries on a wide range of biodiversity subjects. These collections offer great resources to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
BHL Records Now Available in WorldCat
BHL is pleased to announce that it has added its bibliographic records to OCLC’s WorldCat® database, “the world's largest network of library content and services.” You can now find BHL e-books via...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Welcome to Colleen Funkhouser, BHL Program Manager
We are pleased to welcome Colleen Funkhouser as the new BHL Program Manager. As Program Manager, Ms. Funkhouser will work to build strategic partnerships and to maintain and grow the infrastructure and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Historic Art Meets Modern Art: Artist’s Recent Works Highlight BHL Images
Art is an integral part of scientific investigation and documentation. Before the advent of photography, illustrations were used to capture the natural world and share it with broader audiences through...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Time Traveling with BHL: Open Access to Historic Data Empowers Modern...
Dr. Nick Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals in the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Paleobiology, has been a longtime user and advocate for BHL. The historic data accessible...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kate Crooks and the Botanical Society of Canada: How BHL Helped Uncover the...
“Towards the latter end of November, 1860, a proposal was made to organize a Botanical Society. There being no such Institution in operation in Canada, it was thought that much benefit might result...
View Article