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A few weeks ago, we posted about our upcoming booth at the ALA Midwinter 2012 meeting in Dallas, TX, 20-24 January. After an extremely successful experience, which included the opportunity to collaborate with our friends at EOL on the booth, as well as the chance for two of our BHL staff members to give talks at the conference, we wanted to briefly fill you all in on the experience.

Africa. It is the second largest continent in the world, as well as the second most populous. It is commonly regarded to be the location in which the human species originated. It is the only continent to stretch from the northern to southern temperate zones, making it home to a wide variety of life. Furthermore, it has the largest number of megafauna species in the world (megafauna being literally “large animals,” typically considered those weighing greater than 100 or 220 pounds). As such, it is home to some of the most iconic species alive today, including elephants, lions, giraffes, and gorillas.

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.

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.

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!

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.

This week is Big Cats Week, and to celebrate we’re featuring a book in our collection that has some of the loveliest engravings of these majestic felines that we’ve ever seen. The book, Engravings of Lions, Tigers, Panthers, Leopards, Dogs, etc. (1853), by Thomas Landseer, contains 39 plates. The first twenty – of lions, tigers, panthers, and leopards – are engravings by Thomas Landseer after original works by Stubbs, Rubens, Spilsbury, Rembrant, Reydinger, and Edwin Landseer.