All posts from August 2018

Back in June I attended the 50th Annual Meeting of The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) which was also host to the 25th anniversary meeting of the European Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Group (EBHL) as well as the 22nd annual meeting of Linnaeus Link partners. The theme of the meeting was “Botanical and Horticultural Libraries in the Modern Era: Training and Vision for the Future” and it encouraged its attendees to “[discuss] how technology has united us and what the future holds in store for us as we enter the new millennium.” The joint meeting was held between the New York Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Presentations centered around new or revamped digitization projects, implementing electronic access to materials as well as initiatives to better integrate library and archival materials into research discovery systems.

One of the most interesting titles which the MBLWHOI Library has scanned into the Biodiversity Heritage Library is Résultats des campagnes scientifiques accomplies sur son yacht par Albert Ier, prince souverain de Monaco = Results of the scientific campaigns carried out on his yacht by Albert I, sovereign prince of Monaco.

This important book series is part of the MBLWHOI Library Special Collection of the great voyages of scientific exploration. Resultats… brings together the science and data collected by the research expeditions led by Prince Albert I of Monaco (1848-1922) at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Centuries, and the title consists of 110 volumes published from 1889-1950.

The volumes were included as part of a small exhibition prepared by MBLWHOI Library staff for the current head of state of Monaco and great-grandson of Prince Albert I, HSH Prince Albert II. During the visit, MBLWHOI librarians Jen Walton and Matt Person shared past and present connections between Monaco and the MBL and between this important series and current MBL environmental and biological research.

Íris Sampaio, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries at the University of the Azores & Senckenberg am Meer, Germany, has been studying octocoral taxonomy and ecology for eleven years. Résultats des campagnes has had a significant impact on Sampaio’s research, providing her with data on octocoral species collected in the Azores. Thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library, she now has easy access to the title’s public domain volumes.

BHL Program Director Martin Kalfatovic was invited to participate in a symposium, hosted by JSTOR Global Plants, at Botany 2018 in Rochester, MN entitled The Future of Digital Projects for Research & Teaching in Botany.

The symposium addressed questions such as: what existing digital projects in botany have been successful and how did they become so; what areas of need should future projects explore; how do we define success for digital projects; how do digital projects directed at students differ from those aimed at the researcher; how can we use digital projects to reach new students and interested lay people; and how are new digital projects funded and supported for the long term.

Historia naturalis ranarum nostratium has been described as one of the most beautiful works devoted to frogs and amphibians.

The work of German artist and naturalist Johann Rösel von Rosenhof, Historia naturalis ranarum nostratium describes the natural history of all then-known frogs and toads indigenous to the Nuremberg region in Germany. The title is noteworthy first for the extensive, accurate information in the text, printed in two columns in both German and Latin.

The work is equally (if not more) renowned for its illustrations. The twenty-four folio, hand-colored copper engravings portray habitats, anatomy, reproductive behavior, and larval development stages in intricate detail.