If you happened to be living under a rock for the past two weeks and missed our blog posts, tweets, and posts on Facebook, you might have missed the fact that last week was the Life and Literature Conference, an event hosted by BHL with the express purpose of generating conversations about the priorities for biodiversity literature digitization, particularly as it pertains to BHL, for the next 4-5 years. The conference, which took place November 14-15, 2011, in Chicago, IL, brought together interested parties in a variety of disciplines, including science, education, informatics, and the humanities. Lively discussions and insightful presentations ensued both days, with dozens of live tweets (hashtag #lifelit) constantly streaming for those who could not participate in person.

The conference was divided into four panel discussions, followed on the second day by break-out sessions that allowed attendees to delve deeply into the various topics discussed during panel sessions, ultimately leading to an outline of the various areas deemed most important for BHL to focus on in the next 4-5 years. The four panel sessions included “Research, Informatics, and the Published Record;” “Publishers, Aggregators, and Authors – New Models and Access;” “Learning and Education;” and “Building Collaborative Networks for Science and the Humanities through Scientific Literature.” A synopsis of the four panels can be found on the Life and Literature site, as well as a list of each of the presenters and their biographies. Session presentations are being loaded to the BHL wiki and can be accessed on the Presentations page. Notes from the sessions can be found on the Life and Literature website. You can also view interviews of conference attendees on the website.

In order to facilitate a discussion with the audience during panel and breakout sessions, BHL staff used an application called Titan Pad, which provides a collaborative environment that allows anyone to access a document to view, edit, or make comments in real time. There were Titan Pad pages for each of the panels and breakouts, and live notes, as well as live discussion, occurred via those avenues. These pages remain live, and we encourage anyone interested to continue the discussion in the weeks to come!

While many ideas and themes resulted from the discussion generated at the conference, perhaps the most recurring topic involved the connection between science and the humanities. Presentations by speakers at the Humanities panel highlighted some of the possible intersections between art and science, and each breakout session touched upon the various ways that BHL could partner with the humanities and make the biodiversity illustrations already in BHL more accessible. The BHL Flickr site, which currently houses more than 20,000 images, was a huge success, and attendees discussed additional ideas about how BHL could further promote its illustrations and engage the arts and humanities communities. Such ideas as specific image searching interfaces, image-specific collections, and collaborations with artist communities were discussed, and BHL staff outlined some art-related grant projects currently in the works.

The winner of the Life and Literature Code Challenge was also presented at the conference. The Code Challenge asked users to create applications that would use, disseminate, or display BHL data in new and meaningful ways. The winner? Ryan Schenk, with his application Synynyms. Synynyms works as a taxonomic name aggregator, finding all of the different names given to a species over the years and displaying the frequency of each name variety throughout history. The names are provided by the Encyclopedia of Life, and the publications come from, you guessed it, BHL! Congratulations to Ryan, and thanks for sharing such an awesome tool with us!

Last, but certainly not least, two new members of the BHL family were announced, Cornell University Library and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Libraries. With these new members joining the fold the BHL consortium is now 14 members strong! Stay tuned for more information about BHL’s newest members to come in future posts.

By this point, if you’ve been following our “Books of the Week” regularly, you know that 18th, 19th, and 20th century taxonomic works weren’t just about the nomenclature they presented, but also the stunning illustrations accompanying these species descriptions. Those books with the most colorful, the most visually dynamic, images are those that we tend to gravitate towards for our posts. So, when we came across a book that has been described as “bridging the gap between science and art,” we simply had to feature it. That book, perhaps one of the most visually-compelling that we’ve yet featured, is Kunstformen der Natur (1904), by Ernst Haeckel.

Over the course of his career, Haeckel, a German biologist, described and named thousands of new species, popularized the work of Charles Darwin in Germany, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and produced dozens of glorious illustrations. In his lifetime alone, over 1000 prints were made of Haeckel’s sketches, 100 of which are found within Kunstformen der Natur. These 100 prints were translated from sketch to lithograph by artist Adolf Giltsch.

Cnidaria, which include sea anemones, jellyfish, and coral, as well as Radiolarians, which are protozoan zooplankton, are some of the most abundant species illustrated within this work. The book was originally published as ten sets from 1899-1904, and was then re-published as a complete work in 1904. Haeckel scholar Olaf Breidbach eloquently wrote that this title is “not just a book of illustrations but also the summation of [Haeckel’s] view of the world.”

What was to us perhaps the most impressive aspect of the images in Kunstformen der Natur was not simply the radiant colors and depth of realism within the creatures depicted, but the way in which each plate was composed, symmetrically balancing each inch of space and arranging each organism artistically beside or around the others so as to not only catch the viewer’s eye, but dynamically draw him in and keep him constantly engaged. Never before or since has plankton been portrayed with such charm and beauty.

While we cannot feature all 100 of the illustrations within this work in this post, we can at least highlight some of our favorites. And, thanks to the BHL Flickr account, which now has over 13,000 images, you can see all of the remaining illustrations displayed for you on one convenient canvas. We hope that you’ll find this title as richly rewarding as we did.

When Musei Leveriani Explicatio, Anblica et Latina (1792-96), by George Shaw, went up for auction at Christie’s Auction House in April of 2008 it was described as “one of the most comprehensive natural history collections of the eighteenth century.” It sold for $3,926 USD. The work documents the specimens found in Sir Ashton Lever’s museum (the Museum Leverianum), which was originally housed in his home at Alkrington Hall. The book contains 72 hand-colored engraved plates after, among others, Charles Reuben Ryley, Sarah Stone, and Philip Reinagle. With such a claim as “most comprehensive natural history collection,” we had to check it out, and the quality of the illustrations blew us away. So: Voila! Here you have our book of the week!

As stated, Sir Ashton’s museum, which comprised approximately 28,000 items, was originally housed in his home. However, hoping to make the museum self-financing, Lever moved the collection to Leicester House in London in 1774, opening it to the public in 1775 with an admission fee of half a guinea. The museum was popular but not as financially successful as Lever had hoped. In 1784, he was forced to sell the collection, which had been valued at £53,000. He did so by public lottery. 8,000 tickets, priced at 1 guinea each, were sold. James Parkinson won the collection with a ticket purchased by his late wife. Parkinson successfully ran the museum until May of 1806, when, despite the continued popularity of the museum, he was also forced to sell the collection by piece at an auction lasting 65 days.

While the two volumes of this work on BHL contain dozens of gorgeous illustrations (all of which you can browse at your leisure on Flickr!), we’ve selected just a few of our favorites to feature here. Sir Ashton and Mr. Parkinson would have been proud that, though the museum itself did not endure, a record of the enchanting and impressive specimens contained within it has lasted these 200+ years. And now, thanks to BHL and the modern digital era, you don’t have to spend $4,000 at auction to enjoy the marvels that one composed the Museum Leverianum! All you need is a computer and Internet connection!

Musei Leveriani Explicatio, Anblica et Latina (1792-96), by George Shaw, was contributed by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. See the images from this book on Flickr!

We’re all about mollusks in our book of the week this week, with our featured title being one brimming with some really spectacular watercolors by Comingio Merculiano. What, you might ask, is the title of this exceptional work? I Cefalopodi Viventi nel Golfo di Napoli (Sistematica) (1896). While the copy on BHL consists of only the plates from this title, the entire volume (with text) constitutes the 23rd monograph in the series Fauna and Flora of the Gulf of Naples, published by the Stazione Zoologica. This particular monograph, written by Giuseppe Jatta, presents, as the name suggests, detailed information on the Cephalopods of the Mediterranean.

The Fauna and Flora series was the brain child of Anton Dohrn, prominent German Darwinist and founder of the Stazione Zoologica in Naples. In the winter of 1868, Dorhn and his colleague Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai conceived of the idea of a global network of zoological stations, in which scientists could visit various stations around the world, collect material, and conduct research in ready laboratories. The first of these stations, “Stazione Zoologica di Messina,” consisted of two rented rooms in Messina, but impediments such as the absence of a library (oh, how they would have loved BHL!) and permanent trained personnel made it quickly apparent that the idea was wrought with difficulties.

In the 1870s, Dohrn moved the location of the station to Naples, as the breadth of biological richness in the Gulf of Naples, and the proximity to a large university, made it an extremely attractive location. This time, the station was a much greater success! Encouraged, Dohrn decided it was time to move on to another pet project, and one for which the Station was well-equipped to support. Burdened by the lack of systematic studies on marine fauna in the Mediterranean, Dohrn developed the Fauna and Flora of the Gulf of Naples project, assigning groups of marine organisms to subject experts with instructions to write a monograph on each of the assigned groups. Each monograph was to deal with the morphology, development, systematics or ecology of the topic assigned. Disappointed by the quality of scientific illustrations accompanying many of the monographs, Dohrn also hired professional artists to create illustrations for the works. As Dohrn explained in v. 48 of Nature,

“I wished to lay great stress upon illustrations. In looking over the existing iconography of the lower marine animals, and comparing them with those of the terrestrial animals, the inferiority of existing illustrations of the former was apparent, and especially as regards the reproduction of the colouring of the living marine organisms. Colour in animals may have relatively little scientific interest compared with structure, nevertheless it has a meaning, and its good reproduction facilitates greatly the recognition of the species. Besides, practical reasons spoke very much in favor of good coloured illustrations as a means to facilitate the sale of the monographs, which were to be published on subscription, and as the safest way for covering the great expenses which were to be incurred.”

The first artist selected was Merculiano, who began his collaboration in 1885, and it is thanks to the incredible talent of this artist that we have such a glorious collection of illustrations to present this week! Indeed, Dohrn himself attributed the success of the series in large part to the quality of the illustrations contained within the volumes, which were reproduced for the publications via lithographs by Werner and Winter. We’re certainly glad Dohrn decided to incur the costs of quality scientific artwork, and we hope you enjoy the few images we’ve selected for this post. Be sure to check out the entire collection of illustrations from this work in Flickr!

BHL has made some big changes today. Our site now features a new logo, a new “Donate” button and enhanced social media functionality that significantly improves the way you can interact with and share BHL content.

New Opportunities to Support and Share

We know you love BHL, and from the plethora of feedback that we’ve received from users over the years, we know there are many of you that want to help support us. In light of this feedback, we’ve added new “Donate” functionality to the BHL. By clicking on the “Donate” button at the top of your screen, you have the opportunity to provide tax-deductible financial gifts to BHL that will help support continuing development and scanning. A very warm and heartfelt thanks goes out to our users in advance for checking out this new functionality and considering a gift of support.

You can also show your support of the BHL for free by liking us on Facebook or tweeting about us on Twitter! For some time now, we have been building a presence on a variety of social media platforms, including Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter (for a list of all of our social media accounts, visit our public wiki). We’ve now added new linked icons to each of our social media platforms on the left-hand navigation bar of the BHL website.

We love the way social media has allowed us to connect and interact with users in ways we couldn’t before, including sharing thousands of beautiful images with you, conducting daily trivia contests, and hearing from you about what you like about BHL and what you’d like to see improved or added to our site or collection. As great as this has been, we think we can do more. So, our technical development team has been busy providing you with even more ways to socially interact with BHL content.

With the new Facebook “like” button and the Twitter “tweet” buttons:

you now have the opportunity to “like” or “tweet” about specific titles, volumes, or pages you find in our collection. Go to your favorite title in the BHL and try clicking on one of the buttons shown above. You’ll have a new quick and easy way to share about BHL content via your preferred social media platform. More detailed information about our new social media features is forthcoming in a future blog post. Stay tuned.

The New Face of BHL

The new features we’ve added to our website do more to allow our users to interact directly with and support the BHL project. To highlight these changes we’ve adopted a new logo. Working together with our BHL-Australia colleagues, we decided to let go of our old image and adopt a sleeker, more compact one. With this new logo we are putting a fresh “face” forward to welcome the future of exciting new developments for the BHL. Expect more information on our new logo, its origins, and the process we went through to create it, in a later blog post.

As always, we want to hear from you!

If you have any thoughts or comments about today’s changes, or other ideas that you’d like to see implemented, don’t hesitate to send us some feedback or, better yet, tell us via Facebook or Twitter. Thank you for all your interest and support of the BHL. With your help, we will continue to grow and improve for the long road ahead.

It’s no secret that dogs are some of the most popular pets in the world. It is estimated that 60% of all Americans own a dog, and if you’ve ever been a part of a dog-owning household, you probably know why. There are few other types of pets with which you can receive the same level of affection and interaction that you can with a dog, and for many families, their dogs are just as much a member of the family as the parents or children. The web is full of information and images of dogs, and dogs have even played an important role in art through the centuries, as far back as the heyday of the Greeks. It is often through these portraits that historians can trace the history of various dog breeds, and we can catch a glimpse into the fashionable trends of the aristocrats or the sporting culture of an era through these depictions.

And we know that after that introduction, you must be curious about dogs and art! Well, if you want to see dogs as the subjects of fine art, look no farther than BHL! We came across this delightful book entitled The Power of the Dog (1910/11), by Arthur Croxton Smith, which is brimming with glorious illustrations of various dog breeds, created by the artful hand of Maud Earl. The book portrays nineteen breeds, accompanied with descriptions regarding breed information and glimpses of the importance each played in early twentieth century life. But perhaps the most enchanting thing about the book is the way Maud Earl managed to capture not just the likeness, but also the personality of each breed in her art! For this post, we’ve picked five of our favorite paintings and included snippets of the information provided by the book on the breed. We know you’ll find these canines as adorably irresistible as we do and spend an additional few minutes browsing the rest of the images in BHL or on our Flickr account!

English Springer

According to our book of the week, the English Springer “is designed primarily, by serving the sportsman in the field, to accomplish useful duties, but at the same time his docility of disposition, sagacity of expression and beauty of coat make him also a welcome companion when the day’s labours are ended.” At the time of the writing of the book, the English Springer was one of the least popular spaniel breeds, though the author argues that the breed is nearly unparalleled in its utility as a hunting companion. The name “is of good old English derivation, denoting the object for which the dog was employed – to spring birds to the net or gun.”

Pyrenean Mountain Dog

The author writes affectionately of one particular member of this breed, “With manners as charming and irreproachable as her looks, before many days she had won all hearts, becoming an important member of the household. That wise head of hers held brains which led her instinctively to adapt herself to her surroundings, and fall in with the habits and wishes of the human gods which formed her little world.” The book recounts a singularly charming story of the dog in question, Pandore, and her escapades with a garden hose. “The curious serpentine length stretched out on the lawn interested her vastly, and when she heard the sissling noise made by the air escaping from the nozzle as the water came on down went her nose to investigate. A sudden jet full in the face caused a precipitate retreat, and now as the hose appears there is much commotion at a diplomatic distance.”

Boston Terrier

The book’s section on the Boston Terrier begins with the observation that America has produced few breeds of its own. The Boston Terrier, however, though being bred from “exotic” breeds imported from elsewhere, is one that America can claim. “Named after the ‘Hub of the Universe,'” this breed is an “active, game, ‘trappy’ little fellow, fit for my lady’s carriage or as a friend of the working man.” Though the breed had become a favorite pet of the Americans by the writing of this book, the author remarked that the original intentions for the breed were much more sinister. “My impression is that the desire was to manufacture a gladiator fit for the pit; and a cross between a bulldog and a terrier would be about as useful as anything for this horrible purpose. Fate, however, had in store for him a kindlier destiny than mauling his fellows and being mauled in return.”

Sealyham Terrier

Despite the fact that, as the author points out, the UK has produced an astounding plethora of terrier breeds, in the early 1800s, Captain Edwardes of Sealyham, Pembrokeshire, went about the process of creating a new breed, combining the best traits of several of the “old” terrier varieties. What he came up with was the Sealyham Terrier, seeking, the author presumes, “courage and stamina in a small body.” The exact breeds that were combined to produce the Sealyham are hotly debated, ranging from the Dandie Dinmont, the Bull Terrier, and the Welsh Cur. Though by the time of the writing of this book, the breed was largely established, there was still enough variety in the appearance of the various members to prompt our author to question the faithful perpetuity of the breed. He remarked, “All that we can hope is that in the future he will remain in the right hands, and not be made a pawn in the game of commercialism, or be allowed to degenerate into a carpet knight.”

Pekingese Puppy

“To experience the fullest pleasure of the ownership of a dog it is necessary that he should come into our possession when young, before his intelligence is formed, and innumerable other impressions crowd his brain to the exclusion of those we wish to impart.” Such a statement outlines the first rules of having a puppy – that if you wish to own a well-behaved dog and enjoy a fruitful relationship with it, you must train it from an early age, lest he “tear up your favorite book.” If you are careful to do this, and avoid being too harsh with your puppy, Smith assures the reader that he or she will have a pet, and a companion, to cherish for years to come. Looking at this image, however, you might ask, “What is the fate of the merry mite so cleverly portrayed by Miss Earl? Youth passes, middle age comes, let him play and eat and sleep while the zest is on him, so that on the advent of maturity with all its troubles he may seek consolation in the memories of a happy puppyhood.”

Don’t forget to take a look at all of the fantastic images from this book in our Flickr account!