Welcome to the Biodiversity Heritage Library Blog

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 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Davies Sherborn.

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.

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.

While there are many species of plants that flower at night, and among those are many orchids, scientists researching in New Britain just discovered the only orchid species that flowers exclusively at night.

Just after the Life and Literature conference, on Wednesday November 16, members of the BHL Staff got together to talk about day-to-day BHL issues. It was a rare and wonderful opportunity for this highly distributed staff to meet in person. Staff members were present from most of the BHL Consortium Member Institutions, now 14 members strong!