This week, we feature a colleague who combs the botanical literature for new plant names, determines their validity and contributes them to the International Plant Name Index (IPNI). Meet Dr. Kanchi Gandhi, who has been recognized by the American Association of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) for his countless pieces of nomenclatural advice provided to taxonomists worldwide and for keeping classical expertise in the practice of taxonomy alive.

What is your title, institutional affiliation, and area of interest?

I have been the Senior Nomenclatural Registrar at the Harvard University Herbaria (HUH) in Cambridge, MA since 1995. I compile New World plant names for the IPNI and manage the HUH authority files for generic names, authors’ names, and publication titles.

My interests are in the areas of plant nomenclature, plant morphology, and plant taxonomy.

How long have you been in your field of study?

I began my first botanical project in 1970 as a scientific assistant at St. Joseph College in Bangalore, India, working on a survey of local flora in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution. That is how I met Smithsonian botanist, Dan Nicolson, with whom I continued to work with for nearly 40 years. I taught plant taxonomy at The National College, Bangalore. I was awarded a Ph.D. from Texas A&M; University in 1989.

The American Library Association’s 2012 Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, Texas, is just around the corner. January 20th-24th, thousands of librarians and other interested parties will descend upon the city to participate in the five day conference focused on everything you could possibly want to talk about regarding libraries. For more information about the conference, visit the ALA Midwinter 2012 website.

With the prospect of such an appropriate audience gathered in one place, we at BHL, along with our friends at Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to share a little bit about BHL and EOL with the rest of the world. How so? By hosting a booth at the conference.

The booth (booth number 1157), which will be open beginning at 5:30pm, Friday, Jan. 20th, until 2:00pm, Monday, Jan. 23rd, will be manned by various members of the BHL and EOL staff, all of whom will be ready and waiting to answer any questions or engage in any conversations you might have about either project, or the broader digital landscape in general. We’ll also be live demoing both websites (BHL and EOL), showcasing our fabulous Flickr site, and handing out some great swag, including buttons, pens, brochures, business cards, and more. Plus, we’ll be holdings raffles for even more snazzy things, including tote bags and tumblers. Oh, and of course, there will be candy!

So, to recap, if you’re going to be at ALA Midwinter next week, stop by the BHL and EOL booth. And if you’re not going to ALA, well, now that you know we are, you’re making your travel plans, right? 😉

• What? BHL and EOL booth at ALA Midwinter, Dallas, TX, Jan. 20th-24th (For more information on the booth, click here and search under “E” for Encyclopedia of Life/Biodiversity Heritage Library)
• Where? Exhibit Hall, Booth #1157
• When? Booth will be open from 5:30pm, Friday, Jan. 20th – 2:00pm, Monday, Jan. 23rd (see exhibit site for more details on hours)
• Why? Learn all about BHL and EOL with your chance to ask questions of staff, engage in lively conversations, and view live demos of the sites and affiliated content. Plus, we’ll be handing out great free stuff! Don’t miss it!

Fliegenpilz. Krötenstuhl. Mousseron. Frogge Stole. Paddocstol. Toadstool. What do all of these words have in common? They are all various names that have been applied to mushrooms over the centuries. Today, we’re celebrating these curious, tasty, and sometimes deadly organisms with our book of the week, Nouvel Atlas de Poche des Champignons Comestibles et Vénéneux, (1911-12), v. 1. Fungi never looked as good as it does in the illustrations in this little gem…except, of course, perhaps between two pieces of bread at dinner last night…

The term “mushroom” refers to the “fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus.” “Mushroom” is most often applied to fungi with a stem, cap, and gills or pores, though it can also be more universally applied to fungi of the Phylum Ascomycota, or “Sac Fungi,” which are often woody or leathery in appearance.

The identification of mushrooms is a skill that takes many forms, from traditional methods including odors, tastes, colors, habitats, and seasons of occurrence, to more modern methods involving molecular investigation. A perhaps more interesting technique, however, involves mushroom spores. Mushrooms reproduce via spores, which are produced from basidia in the gills on the underside of a mushroom cap. These spores fall from the cap, and as a result, if the mushroom cap is cut from the stem and placed on a piece of paper overnight, the spores will fall en masse and reveal the mushroom’s spore color. The spore color can help narrow down the genus of the specimen. Such deposits are referred to as “Spore Prints.”

Mushrooms play a large role in the cuisine of cultures all across the globe, particularly in the foods of China, Korea, Europe and Japan. China, in fact, is the world’s leading producer of edible mushrooms. The most popular commercially-grown species is Agaricus bisporus, which includes the well-known Portobello variety. However, despite their popularity as food, there are a number of toxic species, and telling the harmless from the harmful can be difficult as there is no universally-held trait among all poisonous or non-poisonous varieties. Even those species deemed non-poisonous can produce mild to severe allergic reactions in some individuals. As another concern for European varieties, since mushrooms are capable of absorbing heavy materials, many specimens in Europe may still be contaminated from the Chernobyl disaster.

Below are some of our favorite illustrations from our book of the week, “>Nouvel Atlas de Poche des Champignons Comestibles et Vénéneux, (1911-12), v. 1. You can see all of the illustrations from this book on our Flickr site. As a challenge to our readers, one of the species below is poisonous. Which one?

This week, we feature a rare plant botanist for the California Native Plant Society whose first words after discovering BHL for the first time were “this is amazing!” We thrive on these incredible moments of serendipitous discovery we so often hear about from our users, and we’re proud to share one of them with you today in our feature on botanist Aaron Sims!

On October 28, 2011, the ICZN (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature), in collaboration with the Society for the History of Natural History and others, hosted a symposium at the Natural History Museum, London, “Anchoring Biodiversity Information: From Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond,” honoring the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Davies Sherborn. Sherborn, 1861-1942, played a critical role in the biodiversity world by being the first to successfully index every living or extinct animal discovered and documented between 1758 and 1850. His greatest work, Index Animalium, took over 43 years to complete but is still referred to by taxonomist around the world. The one-day event, held at the Flett Theatre at the Natural History Museum, London, celebrated the incredible achievements of Sherborn and the ramifications for taxonomic research yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Several BHL-affiliated staff members presented at the symposium, including BHL Technical Director Chris Freeland and Smithsonian Institution Libraries’ (SIL) staff member and BHL metadata guru Suzanne Pilsk. SIL staff members Grace Costantino (Digital Collections Librarian for BHL) and Leslie Overstreet (Curator of the Joseph F. Cullman 3^rd Library at SIL, from which many BHL rare books have been scanned) also presented a poster at the event.

Chris Freeland’s presentation (pictured above) at the symposium, entitled “Approaches to preserving digitized taxonomic data: prints, manuscripts, specimens,” addressed methodologies for responsible curation of digitized prints, manuscripts, and specimens, and outlined best practices for safeguarding digitized taxonomic data to ensure longevity of resources. Such discussions are timely, as the availability of digitized taxonomic data has increased dramatically over the past twenty years as a result of increased support from national funding agencies and the declining cost of scanning devices. As such, natural history museums and libraries have taken on new responsibilities for managing electronic information as ways of providing enhanced opportunities for educational outreach and scholarly dissemination. Museums and libraries have to consider how best to create and care for electronic resources given a volatile technology landscape with rapidly changing file formats and display devices.

SIL’s Suzanne Pilsk explained the role Smithsonian Libraries has played in bringing the critical work Index Animalium out of the library and off the page with a talk titled “Unlocking the Index Animalium: From paper slips to bytes and bits” (pictured above). Pilsk represented the work done to date by SIL staff, interns and volunteers to create an online version of the work. Smithsonian Libraries’ goal was to provide better access to the Index than was previously available and connect the researcher to the level of information needed. Over the span of years, staff has evolved the project from the initial vision of discovering where the text was located within the library walls, to linking to the scanned text via BHL.

Finally, the poster presented by Grace Costantino and Leslie Overstreet, entitled “Online Synergy: Sherborn’s Index Animalium and the Biodiversity Heritage Library,” delved into the link between SIL’s online version of Index Animalium and the digitized volumes within BHL. SIL’s online version of the Index Animalium allows researchers to search the entire multi-volume work by name, epithet, or other keyword. With the citation thus provided, researchers can then access the cited text itself on BHL, finding not only the species citation but, in many cases, remarkable illustrations as well.

The talks and posters from the symposium can be viewed here, and to find out more about the incredible life of Charles Davies Sherborn, take a look at the feature on him and the symposium in The Telegraph. You can also view photos from the event on Flickr.

Ever wondered how BHL decides what to scan? There are a variety of avenues that staff use to select titles for digitization, including scan requests submitted by users, BHL member publications and subject strengths, botany and zoology priority titles, in-copyright titles for which BHL has received permission to scan, and titles identified by BHL staff members as important biodiversity works. To accomplish the latter, the librarians at various BHL institutions play a key role. Their expertise and interaction with library patrons ideally situates them to inform collection development for the BHL project.

This week, we feature one of these individuals, Gil Taylor, librarian at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. He regularly uses day-to-day work within the library and conversations with patrons to suggest important works for BHL to digitize, and his enthusiasm for and promotion of the project ensures that anyone coming into contact with the Smithsonian Libraries is made aware of the wealth of information available within the BHL collection.

What is your title and institutional affiliation?

I’m assistant department head at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s Natural and Physical Sciences department. Recently I have been overseeing the Entomology and Invertebrate Zoology (IZ) libraries at the NMNH, along with Museum Support Center Library, in Suitland, MD. I have been at the SIL since 1990.

How long have you been working in a library environment?

Nearly 30 years. Before coming to SIL, I worked full time in a number of libraries and technical services at the University of Maryland, College Park, where I also received my MLS in 1989. I came aboard in the library world just as the OPAC was superseding the card catalog, and to me it was particularly interesting, especially as you could access the catalog remotely. I felt like I was cutting-edge back in the 1980’s as I was the only one in my library school cataloging class who typed up sample cards using an Apple II and a dot matrix printer instead of using a typewriter.

When did you first discover BHL?

I feel as if I witnessed its birth, as it grew out of SIL’s Biologia Centrali -Americana project.

What is your current level of involvement in BHL?

I serve on SIL’s BHL Task Force and try to identify needs BHL can fill for our researchers. I was very happy to be on board with BHL as the Entomology and IZ Libraries here were among the first SIL libraries to be “harvested” for BHL. But, I primarily I see myself as a BHL evangelist, taking every opportunity to expound on what a great, quality non-profit effort It is. I believe it’s utterly central to the librarian ethos to make every effort to share the knowledge you’re charged with curating.

What is your opinion of BHL and what impact has it had on your duties as a librarian?

From a front-line reference librarian perspective, it has been a real boon. Our staff members sometimes take particular delight in responding to ILL queries for our materials by pointing to their availability in BHL. Not having to painstakingly copy materials, sometimes from old volumes with fragile bindings, is a huge time-saver.

How often do you use BHL?

When doing reference work, almost every day.

What has been the reaction of your patrons to BHL?

I remember the initial skepticism from staff and users that the image quality of scans would not be good enough for serious taxonomic identification work. When users know they have access to original scans in a very lossless format, I have rarely come across a patron who was dissatisfied with what they have downloaded from BHL. For older curators and volunteers, their first time in utilizing BHL can seem almost magical in its instant gratification.

What services/features do you like most about BHL and which do you most like to point out to your patrons? Which services/features are your patrons most excited about/use the most often?

There is no one specific feature that I point out routinely, but I emphasize to patrons that because BHL is nearly a grass-roots effort, all suggestions and feedback for its improvement are taken seriously and can really make a difference. We can clearly see this, for example, as BHL continually tweaks its UI. Compare this to attempting to get the attention of a vast information services conglomerate.

If you could change one thing about BHL, what would it be, or what developmental aspect would you like the BHL team to focus on next?

I think some work needs to be done on correcting OCR, as this can be a problem when exporting content to mobile platforms. One researcher here recently inquired about how to access BHL content on an iPad while he is in a deep-sea submersible.

I think I (and others) would like to have the ability to upload a list of citations from a researcher and have BHL automatically link to corresponding content. This seems almost like a science fiction fantasy for a librarian, but I think it is within the reach of developers.

The BLE virtual exhibition of BHL content that BHL-Europe is experimenting with seems like a terrific way to package and serve content in literally spicy, creative ways. This is the customized library subject guide of the future.

As I also answer or direct public e-mail queries at SIL, I see a lot of requests for images. Further indexing of images through pattern recognition, etc. could dramatically widen the BHL’s audience.

Is there a specific item on BHL that is most often requested by your patrons/that you use more than any other to fulfill ILL requests?

For the public, but also from SI researchers, the mostly 19th century, legacy Smithsonian-published materials (annual reports/bulletins of the USNM, Bureau of Ethnology, etc.) are particularly popular.

Thank you, Gil, for all the work you do for BHL and for the critical contributions you make to the development and dissemination of the project. And we send a special thanks to all our librarian colleagues who make BHL run like such a well-oiled machine!

It’s December, and the holiday season is upon us! Neighborhoods are basking in a many-colored glow cast by light strands hung by the mile, stores have stocked their shelves with every gift and festive item imaginable, and a general atmosphere of good cheer hangs in the air. As you think about buying gifts for your loved ones this season, consider giving a gift to BHL as well.

To date, we’ve scanned over 36 million pages for BHL, but that scanning doesn’t happen by magic. It takes dozens of dedicated staff members and generous financial resources provided by grants, endowments, and donations contributed by the public. We believe in the work we do, and the success of our donations button and the continuous praise we receive for BHL shows us that you do too!

We have a dream to digitize all available taxonomic literature and make it freely available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. During an era in world history where three-quarters of climate change is manmade, it is vital that the critical knowledge held within the legacy literature be made available to scientists, researchers, conservationists, and the public at large so that we can make intelligent decisions to save global biodiversity for generations to come. Without the generous support of grants and donations, this dream will be very difficult to realize.

So, as you brave the malls, overcrowded parking lots, and perhaps over-zealous shoppers, keep BHL in your thoughts. Making a donation to BHL is much simpler than tackling the challenges of department store shopping. All you have to do is click on the “Donate” button located at the top of the BHL website. All donations are tax-deductible, and the easy donation interface allows your to contribute any amount you desire. No gift is too small, and all will contribute to the strengthening and expanding of BHL. Learn more about the BHL donate button in our previous blog post.