All posts by Grace Costantino

From November 28th through December 9th, BHL is joining the Smithsonian Libraries, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Smithsonian Field Book Project, and Smithsonian Transcription Center in hosting the #ManyHatsofHolmes transcription event. This event challenges volunteers around the world to help us transcribe William Henry Holmes’ archival materials. Learn more on the Smithsonian Libraries’ blog. As the hashtag implies, William Henry Holmes (1846-1933) studied a variety of topics throughout his distinguished career, including anthropology, archaeology, art, and geology.

Are you planning to do some shopping for Black Friday? Do you want your purchase to make an impact on biodiversity conservation and research? Then the BHL Black Friday Sale is perfect for you! From November 23-27, save 10% off select products in the BHL store.

Have you ever been to a museum and wondered about the history of the specimens on display? If you have, then you’d probably be interested in talking to the museum’s collections managers, as their jobs include not only caring for and improving accessibility to the collections, but also serving as a living knowledge repository for information about the history of the collections. Take the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, for example. Amongst the many treasures on display in that museum are five whale skeletons suspended from the roof. Where did those specimens come from?

During an award ceremony at the Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 7, the Biodiversity Heritage Library was recognized as a co-recipient of the inaugural DLF Community/Capacity award, along with the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The Community/Capacity Award honors cross-institutional collaboration and constructive, community-minded capacity building in digital libraries, archives, and museums. During the month of June, DLF member organizations voted on an impressive list of 16 nominees to determine the award winner.

Apparently, clergymen in the 16th century had a lot of extra time on their hands to masquerade as sea monsters and make their marks on the annals of natural history as sea monks and bishop fish. All this month, we’ve been exploring curious creatures in natural history as part of Page Frights. Today being Halloween, we thought we’d continue the fun by highlighting another “clergyman monster in disguise,” the bishop fish! Earlier this month, we highlighted the ‘sea monk,’ or Piscis monachi habitu (“Fish with the habit of a monk”), a specimen of which was reportedly caught in the seas between Sweden and Denmark in the 1540s.

Arachnophobia (the fear of spiders and other arachnids) is one of the most prevalent phobias in the world, and some estimates suggest that over 30.5% of people in the United States alone have a fear of arachnids (Health Research Funding 2014). Given the pervasiveness of this phobia, we thought it only appropriate to spend some time on the subject of spiders as part of our Page Frights celebration. Being the science-focused organization that we are, we decided to look at the topic of arachnids from a taxonomic point of view. The founding text on spider nomenclature is Svenska Spindlar. It was published in 1757 by Carl Clerck, a member of the Swedish nobility.

BHL is excited to welcome Carolina Murcia, our new Product Development and Marketing Intern! Over her eight-month internship through the Smithsonian Libraries in Washington, D.C., Carolina will conduct market research and create products and marketing materials for the BHL CafePress store.