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In 1897, a monumental work appeared in print for the first time. It was a story of invasion. It was a story of war. It was a story of Martians. The story, of course, was The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, which first appeared in serialized form in the UK’s Pearson’s Magazine and the US’s Cosmopolitan magazine in 1897. It was later first published in book form by William Heinemann of London in 1898. Written between 1895-97, it is one of the earliest stories centered around conflict between humans and extraterrestrials. An extremely influential work, it has never been out of print. The 1906 Belgian edition of the book included drawings by Brazilian artist Henrique Alvim Corrêa.

1834 was a landmark year in the field of herpetology – the study of amphibians and reptiles. It was the year that the first volume of André Marie Constant Duméril’s monumental work Erpétologie générale ou Histoire naturelle complète des reptiles was published.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library’s collection of in-copyright titles continues to grow.

So you probably know that BHL is a global consortium and that to date we have 23 Members and Affiliates plus 8 global nodes. Explore our Members and Affiliates’ contributions to BHL in our latest quarterly report and newsletter.

BHL Program Director Martin Kalfatovic attended the DPLAFest 2015 in Indianapolis (April 17-18) representing both the BHL content hub and the Smithsonian content hub. DPLAFest drew over 300 people to the public programs held at the Indianapolis Public Library, the Indiana State Library, IUPUI University Library, and the Indiana Historical Society. DPLA Director of Content Emily Gore gave important updates on the DPLA hub model and how DPLA hopes that it will evolve over time. At the open poster session during the reception on the first day of DPLAFest, BHL presented

In 1855, after an exhausting trip across the Amazon, botanist Richard Spruce reached the Escalera Mountains of northern Peru. “I am among magnificent scenery and an interesting vegetation,” he wrote. In 2013, botanist Corine Vriesendorp went back to those same mountains—still remote, still magnificent, and essentially unexplored since Spruce. “Stunningly beautiful,” she wrote.

On 13 April 2015, BHL Program Director Martin R. Kalfatovic attended the GBIF-CoL-EOL-BHL-BOLD Summit at Naturalis in Leiden, Netherlands. This meeting followed on the preceding Catalogue of Life meeting in Oostende, Belgium. The meeting took place in the historic Pesthuis on the Naturalis campus. Other participants were: The purpose of the meeting was to discuss synergy and explore potential for intensifying collaboration concerning infrastructure, software tools, and services.