All posts from January 2017

Walk into most any nursery or florist and you will see beautiful orchids of many colors and sizes, with “easy care” instructions attached right to the pot enabling even the brownest thumb success. Want to shake the winter doldrums? Attend an orchid show or meeting – there are over 500 local groups affiliated with the American Orchid Society alone. Orchids are as diverse as they are beautiful, with over 27,000 accepted species living in nearly every corner of the globe. We are not alone in our fascination with orchids. In the nineteenth century, Europe was gripped by what has been named “Orchidelirium.”  The collection of orchids from around the world was booming as the industrial revolution continued to change the economy and reach of Europe.

The last quarter of 2016 continued the year’s steady growth in new permissions for in-copyright titles: 46 in October, November, and December, bringing the year-end total to 154! Major drivers of this growth were the Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature project, staff at BHL participating institutions, and the worldwide BHL user community, which regularly identifies material and recommends it for digitization.

The New York Zoological Society (NYZS) was chartered in 1895. Its founders were Andrew H. Green, planner of some of New York City’s most important cultural institutions; Henry Fairfield Osborn, professor and curator at the American Museum of Natural History; and Madison Grant, a lawyer and conservationist.

In the early eighteenth century, English naturalist Mark Catesby set foot in a New World. After spending the better part of ten years, spread across two separate trips, exploring and documenting North America’s rich biodiversity, he would eventually publish his research and original artworks as the first fully illustrated book on the flora and fauna of North America.