All posts tagged with flickr

When most people think of BHL’s users, they think of scientists accessing literature for research. However, one of our largest user communities is librarians, which use BHL to fulfill requests from patrons, saving their libraries time and resources by having immediate, free, online access to our material. One such librarian is Wendy Wasman, a librarian at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, who graciously agreed to give us a peek at the way she uses BHL to support her work activities.

In October, 2011, BHL Staff conducted a usability test of the BHL US/UK portal, assessing its functionality and comparing it with that of the BHL-Australia portal. While several recommendations arose from that exercise, two of the most emphatic were a need to improve the BHL search functionality and a desire to make the BHL US/UK portal more aesthetically pleasing.

In July, 2011, several members of the BHL staff began putting illustrations from BHL books on Flickr. It started as a simple way to flag favorite staff images and document the illustrations we were using in various outreach activities, like Twitter and Facebook.

In case you missed our post earlier this week, the Biodiversity Heritage Library is now on iTunes U. From our provider page, you can now download select BHL content through iTunes to your desktop or mobile device, i.e. iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone. And, all for free, of course! We currently have 8 collections available, including:You can learn more about iTunes U through Apple’s website.

One of the earliest mentions of Groundhog Day can be found in the diary of a Pennsylvania storekeeper named James Morris, who, on February 4, 1841, wrote:Some one hundred and seventy years later, Groundhog Day, celebrated on February 2nd in the U.S. and Canada, is a spirited, suspenseful day on which we discover our winter fate, or our fate as the groundhog foresees it, anyway. If the groundhog sees his shadow, it’s another six weeks of winter.

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.

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.