We’ve released new functionality in BHL to allow users to search across all the scientific names we’ve indexed throughout our digital library and view a bibliography of occurrences – what we’re tentatively calling a “discovered bibliography”. To view in action, begin here:

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/NameSearch.aspx

You can search by any taxonomic name, such as Poa annua, or Poaceae, to return results.

Next steps will be to allow users to search for a taxonomic name & return results for it and its synonyms, or taxa below. But before implementing that advanced functionality, we’d like to make sure this works well for a single taxonomic name. Please give it a try and leave comments below.

Thanks to Dr. Gary Borisy from MBL for mentioning BHL on NPR, and to Brewster Kahle from the Internet Archive for calling the Biodiversity Heritage Library a “shining example” of open access!

From the NPR web site:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10136879
This week, scientists announced a new effort to create an online encyclopedia of life. Pulling information from labs, libraries and museums around the world, organizers aim to make a multimedia Web page for every known species on the planet. Gary Borisy, a project leader, discusses the effort.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10136882
Several organizations are working to digitize and make available online all the information that might be hiding on the shelves of libraries around the world. Leaders in the digital libraries community talk about how they intend to go about putting every book published online.