All posts tagged with natural-history

Blog Reel, User Stories

19th Century Butterflies: Reconstructing a Collection’s History with BHL

The Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a recent BHL Affiliate, is home to one of the largest natural history collections in the world, consisting of over 37 million specimens. Additionally, Naturalis has contributed nearly 200,000 pages to the BHL collection since 2016. Over 900,000 of the museum’s 37+ million specimens are butterflies, some dating back to the 18th century.

March 9, 2017byGrace Costantino

Blog Reel, User Stories

Undergraduates and the BHL

“Is the bald eagle really bald?” This was the question that a recent history of science undergraduate class at Harvard University had to answer with the help of BHL. Specifically, students were required to locate Mark Catesby’s 1731 plate of the bald eagle in BHL and use the accompanying text to determine the accuracy of the bird’s moniker. Mary Sears, Head of Public Services at the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, instructed the class on how to use BHL to satisfy the assignment.

May 12, 2016byGrace Costantino

Blog Reel, User Stories

BHL Isn’t Just For Biologists

Charles Darwin is famous for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. The theory hinges on the mutability of species, whereby the propagation of certain favorable traits within members of a species may gradually result in the evolution of that species. The question of when Darwin first came to believe in the mutability of species – when he became a “convinced transmutationist” – has long been a point of contention among historians of science. There are two prevailing theories on the topic. The early conversion hypothesis states that Darwin developed a belief in the transmutation of species while on the Beagle voyage based on observed similarities between the fossils he was collecting and extant species in the area.

December 17, 2015byGrace Costantino

Blog Reel, User Stories

The scientific and historical importance of small, old collections

In 1838, Ferdinand Joseph L’Herminier, a French botanist and zoologist born in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, published the first description of the Double-striped Thick-knee (vocifer), today known by the scientific name Burhinus bistriatus vocifer [1]. L’Herminier used six specimens to describe the species, which he originally named Ædicnemus vocifer. One of the specimens that L’Herminier used for his description is housed in the Baillon Collection at the Musée George Sand et de la Vallée Noire, La Châtre, France.

October 8, 2015byGrace Costantino

BHL News, Blog Reel

Newest In-Copyright Additions to our Collection

Did you know that there is modern literature in our collection? We have permission with over 165 licensors to provide nearly 400 in-copyright titles for free and open access under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. In other words, we have contemporary titles in our collection that you are free to use so long as you attribute the content to the copyright holder, use the content for educational or personal use only (commercial use is NOT allowed) and share the content under the same license (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0).

July 16, 2015byBianca Crowley

BHL News, Blog Reel

Natural Histories: Exploring Rare Books and Scientific Illustration

Have you ever wanted to browse the stacks of a rare book library? To explore the pages of Gessner’s sixteenth century masterpiece Historiae Animalium and ask an expert why a walrus is illustrated with wing-like appendages? Or study Alexander Wilson’s passenger pigeon illustration and learn from a rare book authority the scientific implications of the depictions of now-extinct species?

January 29, 2013byMichelle Strizever

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About BHL

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. Headquartered at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives in Washington, D.C., BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working together to digitize the natural history literature held in their collections and make it freely available for open access as part of a global “biodiversity community.”

All posts tagged with natural-history

19th Century Butterflies: Reconstructing a Collection’s History with BHL

Undergraduates and the BHL

BHL Isn’t Just For Biologists

The scientific and historical importance of small, old collections

Newest In-Copyright Additions to our Collection

Natural Histories: Exploring Rare Books and Scientific Illustration

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