All posts from March 2009

The lack of access to the published biodiversity literature is a major obstacle to efficient research and a broad range of other applications, including education, biodiversity conservation, protected area management, disease control, and maintenance of diverse ecosystems services. This literature also has cultural importance as a resource for the study of the history of science, art and other non-science applications. Currently, a large number of small projects are digitising biodiversity material in numerous institutions across the EU to make access more open, but the corpus will still be seriously fragmented. These projects do not use common standards or interfaces and are not interoperable.

The Associated Press ran a story on March 20 with the headline, “Rare reptile found first time in 200 years” (see the MSNBC version).The tuatara is a member of the order Sphenodontia and important to the study of the evolution of lizards and snakes. Thought to be extinct on the main islands of New Zealand, the discovery of this hatchling is great news.

Following user requests, the BHL exports now include Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and metadata for all pages in the BHL collection.

Yes, we might be a little slow to the game, but the BHL now has a Twitter account. Please follow us and see what worthy of 140 characters!