All posts by Grace Costantino

In November, 2011, at the Life and Literature Conference in Chicago, IL, BHL announced the addition of its fourteenth consortium member, the United States Geological Survey Library.

If you’ve been following us on Twitter or checking in on our Facebook page, you know that this month is Women’s History Month. BHL is celebrating by highlighting women throughout history who have played in important role in the progression of biodiversity research and knowledge.

In July, 2011, several members of the BHL staff began putting illustrations from BHL books on Flickr. It started as a simple way to flag favorite staff images and document the illustrations we were using in various outreach activities, like Twitter and Facebook.

For our regular series “BHL and our Users,” we usually feature scientists who use BHL to conduct their research. However, there are many different kinds of BHL users, not the least of which are librarians that use BHL to help them execute their own work supporting the research needs of their library patrons.

The 2011 Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards Exhibit opened at the Natural History Museum on March 30, 2012. We all know that photography is a strikingly compelling means of experiencing nature’s majesty. This concept is the driving force behind the Nature’s Best Photography competition, which operates under the mission to “celebrate the beauty and diversity of nature through the art of photography.”

Have you ever wondered what a fish looks like inside? With the advent of x-ray technology, your curiosity can be sated, all without having to dissect a fish. And with the new Smithsonian exhibit, X-Ray Vision: Fish Inside Out, you can explore the evolutionary development of fish through a progression of x-rays from cartilaginous to bony fish.

It’s hailed as “the first major print color book produced in America.” Some of the most influential artists of the nineteenth century worked on the illustrations, including Thomas Doughty, founder of the Hudson River School, and Titian Ramsay Peale, who is believed to be the first American artist to observe and paint the Indians and Buffalo of the Great Plains. The work sold at Christie’s Auction House for $5,750 in 1993 – nearly $3000 more than the high range estimate.