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Book of the Week: The Bittern and Bird Identification for the Ornithological Novice - Posted: 8/24/2010 If you find yourself in the mid-United States to northern Canada this time of year, you may be witness to the final days of occupation in this area for Botaurus lentiginosus, the American Bittern. From early May through the summer, the American Bittern spends its breeding months in the Mid-US to northern Canada, occupying nest sites chosen and constructed by the female Bittern of the mating pair. For the duration of the egg-laying period, the female Bittern will lay one egg each morning, with the incubation period lasting 24 to 28 days. Once the mating season ends, the American Bitterns find their way to the south Atlantic coast across the Gulf coast and west to southern California for the duration of the wintering months, although some populations living in regions with milder temperatures appear to actually be non-migratory. So, if you happen to find yourself in the mid-US this time of year observing a bird that may or may not be the American Bittern, how to you determine, with little to no ornithological training, whether or not what you see is Botaurus lentiginosus? Such a question was of great concern for Reginald Heber Howe, a naturalist focusing on lichens, birds, and dragonflies. With this week's book of the week, "Every bird;" a guide to the identification of the birds of woodland, beach and ocean (1896), Howe hoped to present a resource that would be both efficient and useful to beginners in the field of Ornithology. Howe makes this desire perfectly clear in his preface, writing, "Having long felt that the identification of a bird would be much less difficult to beginners in the Study of Ornithology, if they could have a book in which every genus was illustrated by an accurate outline drawing of the head and foot, with a description of the general plumage void entirely of technical terms, I offer this volume to the bird lover." And, indeed, on page 116, Howe succinctly describes the key features of the American Bittern, accompanied by a line drawing of the head and foot of the bird. With such a companion, the casual naturalist might have no difficulties identifying this species, or any other bird species, that crosses his or her path. So, take a look at this week's book of the week, "Every bird;" a guide to the identification of the birds of woodland, beach and ocean (1896), by Reginald Heber Howe, and if you happen to find yourself crossing paths with an unknown bird species, bring up the title on your mobile device and put your ornithological skills to the test! Click here to see a list of other titles in the Biodiversity Heritage Library by Reginald Heber Howe. This week's book of the week, "Every bird;" a guide to the identification of the birds of woodland, beach and ocean (1896), by Reginald Heber Howe, was contributed by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. |
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Book of the Week: Deadly Fungi - Posted: 8/9/2010 It is one of the most poisonous of all known toadstools, and it is responsible for a majority of human deaths involving its type - mushrooms. It is the Amanita phalloides, more commonly known as the Death Cap. This innocent-looking fungi has been blamed for the deaths of Roman Emperor Claudius and Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. It causes, often fatal, damage to the kidneys and liver, and there is no known antidote.
Amanita phalloides is widely distributed throughout Europe, particularly in the southern parts of the continent. However, with the cultivation of non-native species of oak, chestnut, and pine, the Death Cap has been accidentally introduced to other regions, including New Zealand, North America and South Africa.
"The Poison amanita is very variable in the color of the cap, and yet is so definite in its structural characters' that only the most careless observer would be likely to confuse it with any other species. There is, however, a sort of deceptive character about it. It is very neat and attractive in its appearance and looks as if it might be good enough to eat. This appearance is fortified by the absence of any decidedly unpleasant odor or taste, but let him who would eat it beware, for probably there is not a more poisonous or dangerous species in our mycological flora. To eat it is to invite death."
Take a closer look at this species within this week's book of the week, and read more to find tips on how to identify this species and avoid misidentification that could prove, well, fatal. And, once you're finished with Amanita phalloides, feel free to read on about more poisonous plants found throughout Eastern North America.
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Good Neighbors: Modern Ecology - Posted: 8/3/2010 The modern ecological movement* can be traced back to the 1970 observance of Earth Day. Now a global celebration, the first Earth Day was conceived by a United States Senator from Wisconsin and called for nationally coordinated educational programming to raise consciousness about increasing environmental degradation. Forty years later, "Earth Day is everyday" and the UN has named 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity in an effort that mirrors Sen. Gaylord Nelson's hopeful vision. But there are distinctions between earlier environmental campaigns and current thinking; it's no longer sufficient to organize efforts around the "wilderness" or far-away habitats of endangered species. The flora and fauna of your back-yard could be just as susceptible to extinction as the inhabitants of the rain forests. And unless you live under the sea, saving the whales might not be your first priority. Popularized by Michael Rosenzweig, a University of Arizona ecologist, reconciliation ecology acknowledges that " nothing influences species' diversities more than the amount of area available to life." And as cities continue to grow, area available to local species becomes increasingly sought-after, a veritable arena for biological competition. Traditional wisdom tells us winners and losers are functions of competition. Period. Conversely, reconciliation ecology accepts the reality of competition for finite space while insisting a win-win outcome is still possible--provided we adjust human activities in accordance with local species' requirements for survival. Click here for more information about reconciliation ecology and here for a look at BHL content about species in your neighborhood. *oh, and of course, we should remember the galvanizing effect of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.
Image credit: WiscMel@en.wikipedia
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Ingest Criteria Revised - Posted: 7/30/2010In November 2009, the BHL started ingesting biodiversity related content from the Internet Archive. Since then, the BHL collection has grown significantly. Each week, the BHL brings in new content from the Internet Archive based on a criteria of selected Library of Congress Subject Headings and call numbers, with the aim of bringing in content related to the literature of biological diversity. As described by the Convention on Biodiversity, Biological diversity - or biodiversity - is the term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms.…This diversity is often understood in terms of the wide variety of plants, animals and microorganisms.…Biodiversity also includes genetic differences within each species - for example, between varieties of crops and breeds of livestock. Chromosomes, genes, and DNA-the building blocks of life-determine the uniqueness of each individual and each species. Yet another aspect of biodiversity is the variety of ecosystems such as those that occur in deserts, forests, wetlands, mountains, lakes, rivers, and agricultural landscapes. In each ecosystem, living creatures, including humans, form a community, interacting with one another and with the air, water, and soil around them. http://www.cbd.int/convention/guide/ The BHL collection reflects this wide interdisciplinary spectrum. When ingesting content from the Internet Archive, the criteria of LCSH and LC call numbers are used to target as much relevant biodiversity literature as possible, but it is not fool proof. Recently, the Ingest Criteria was reviewed by the BHL Collections Committee to identify subject terms and call numbers that were missing the mark. We noticed books were being brought in that were clearly not relevant to the BHL mission such as books about human anatomy, taxation, and hockey. The Ingest Criteria have since been revised to better target biodiversity relevant materials and most of the irrelevant content has been removed from our collection. Users should not have to weed through irrelevant materials in the BHL collection when access to this content remains available via other open access digital collections. For example, access to Mary Louise Serafine's Measure of meter conservation in music based on Piaget's theory will be via the Internet Archive website rather than through the BHL. For more information about BHL’s de-accession policy, please see our documentation on our wiki http://biodivlib.wikispaces.com/Deaccession+Policy. Should you feel that any content has been removed from BHL unnecessarily, please feel free to send us your comments to our feedback form. |
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Book of the Week: Another Peek at Conservation - Posted: 7/28/2010 One of the most endangered species on the planet is Diceros bicornis, commonly known as the Black Rhinoceros. Distributed throughout Africa, south of the Sahara, the "current range of black rhinoceroses is bounded by Cameroon, Kenya, and South Africa but their distribution within those limits is fragmented." The threat to the Rhino population is largely due to a demand for the species' horns, "both for use in Chinese traditional medicine and for traditional dagger handles in Yemen." The demand for these horns increased significantly in the 1970s as the "oil-rich Gulf States" experienced increased income. "It is estimated that between 1970 and 1992, around 96 percent of the black rhinoceros population was lost." Three subspecies of the Black Rhinoceros - the eastern, southwestern and southern central subspecies - are listed as Critically Endangered in the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Red List. The fourth subspecies of the Black Rhinoceros - the western subspecies - is listed as Probably Extinct. The total population of Black Rhinoceros today is approximately 3,725 individuals. Fortunately, there are ongoing efforts to protect this species, and it now looks as though most black rhino populations are increasing. Nevertheless, populations still comprise only a fraction of what they were only fifty years ago. "Conservation efforts to preserve black rhinos include establishing a ban against the horn trade, creating fenced sanctuaries for black rhinos to better protect them from poachers, and dehorning black rhinos to decrease incentive for poaching." The Black Rhinoceros was first described by Carl von Linné in volume 1 of Systema naturae per regna tria naturae :secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (1758), this week's book of the week. Volume 1 of this work describes the Animal Kingdom, while volume 2 describes the Plant Kingdom. Linné, also commonly known as Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist, is best known for laying the schema for binomial nomenclature, the naming convention used to identify species. His numerous works include the first descriptions of many, many species, and serve as the foundation by which modern scientists describe life as they continue to increase our knowledge about it. For more information about the conservation of the Black Rhinoceros, and what you can do to help, see the Black Rhinoceros page at the World Wildlife Fund website. To find more information about the Black Rhinoceros species, take a look at the species page on EOL. For a look at the listing of the Black Rhinoceros on the endangered species list in BHL, see page 25 of the 1994 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. And finally, take a look at this week's book of the week, Systema naturae per regna tria naturae :secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (1758), volume 1, by Carl von Linné, in which you can see the first description of both the Black Rhinoceros and many other species. |
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Book of the Week: The Green Anole and Cuvier - Posted: 6/29/2010 If you ever owned a lizard as a pet growing up, chances are good that you owned one of EOL's featured species, an Anolis carolinensis, or Green Anole, also sometimes called the American Chameleon, although it is not a type of chameleon. This misnomer comes from this species' ability to turn from green to brown. This species is the only Anole species native to North America, and is found primarily in the southeastern United States. The Green Anole has played a very important role in scientific research, particularly as it relates to studying neurological disorders, drug delivery systems and biochemical pathways as they relate to humans. Furthermore, "in 2005, the scientific community overwhelmingly chose the green anole lizard as its first target species for reptilian genome sequencing" due to "the repeated convergent pattern of adaptive radiation on islands of the Greater Antilles, producing on each island essentially the same set of habitat specialists adapted to use different parts of the environment." The Green Anole, or Anolis carolinensis, was first described in this week's book of the week, Das Thierreich, geordnet nach seiner Organisation : als Grundlage der Naturgeschichte der Thiere und Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie, volume 2 (1832), by Friedrich Siegmund Voight. The book itself is attributed to both Voight and the well-known Baron Georges Cuvier. Cuvier was a French naturalist and zoologist, well known for his work helping to establish the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology. Furthermore, he is well remembered as establishing extinction as a fact.
Das Thierreich, geordnet nach seiner Organisation : als Grundlage der Naturgeschichte der Thiere und Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie is a work of six volumes, published between 1831 and 1843. The volumes describe species from all across the Animal Kingdom, ranging from birds to reptiles and fish, mollusks, crustacea, insects and more. Take a few moments to take a look at the first description of our friend, the Green Anole, as well as the many other descriptions contained within the pages of these volumes. It is amazing to think that a species that was first introduced to the scientific community in a short, one sentence description would become one of the most important species in the study of human illness and animal physiology and behavior. This week's Book of the Week, Das Thierreich, geordnet nach seiner Organisation : als Grundlage der Naturgeschichte der Thiere und Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie, volume 2 (1832), by Cuvier and Voight, was contributed by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
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Biodiversity Heritage Library receives the ALCTS Collaboration Award - Posted: 6/28/2010Staff from the Biodiversity Heritage Library received the Outstanding Collaboration award from ALCTS on June 27, 2010. The text of the citation read: The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is awarding the ALCTS Outstanding Collaboration Citation to two distinguished libraries. This year’s recipients, in recognition of their outstanding collaborative partnerships are: the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the digitization component of the Encyclopedia of Life, which is a consortium of 12 major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries and research institutions organized to digitize, serve and preserve the legacy literature of biodiversity; and the Juliette K. and Leonard S. Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning N.Y. Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), in a noteworthy collaborative effort, has fulfilled a scholarly need by providing open access to a large corpus of historical materials on biodiversity within the biological, ecological and environmental sciences. BHL has grown into an international collaborative digitization project by working with 12 major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries and research institutions in the United States and United Kingdom. Through digitization and preservation, materials are made available, over an open access platform to scholars and researchers globally. The ability to locate, identify, retrieve the materials and, most importantly, to locate and identify specific organisms by their scientific names is seamless yet shows a high level of sophistication within BHL’s digital interface. Pictured above, left to right are: Mary Case (President, ALCTS), Nancy E. Gwinn (Smithsonian Libraries), Tom Garnett (BHL/Smithsonian Libraries), Chris Freeland (BHL/Missouri Botanical Garden), Connie Rinaldo (Mayr Library, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University), Diana Duncan (The Field Museum, Chicago), Jane Smith (Natural History Museum, London), Matthew Person (Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Library), Cynthia Whitacre (President Elect, ALCTS) |
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New Feature: User-Submitted Requests for Scanning! - Posted: 6/22/2010So, many of you participated in our BHL User Survey 2010, and we greatly appreciate your contributions! One of the most prevalent themes throughout the range of responses that we received was that our users want to be able to submit requests for scanning. So, you spoke; we listened.  You as a user can now submit requests for items to be scanned and added to the BHL collection, free of charge to you, no less! The process is easy, too. Simply access the " Feedback" form on the BHL website (located in the upper right hand corner of the header through the " Feedback" link, or at the title and item level in BHL by clicking on the "Report an Error" link on the right hand side of the title screen or above the scan images in the book viewer) and choose the option "Scanning Request." You can then fill out and submit the form indicating your request for scanning. We do ask that you keep a few things in mind. First, due to copyright restrictions, requests for scanning are limited to items published before 1923. Secondly, our ability to scan a request is limited both to the collections of our BHL member institutions and the condition of the volumes they might hold. If we don't have it, we can't scan it. If it's falling apart, we probably won't be able to scan it. Finally, we scan requests in the order they are received, and depending on certain circumstances, such as the rarity or fragility of the item in question, it may take longer to scan certain requests. Nevertheless, we are excited about this new feature and the opportunity it gives you, the user, to contribute to the building of our ever-increasing digital collection. So, pull out those lists of items you wished BHL had and start submitting your requests! We're waiting... |
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Book of the Week: Spiders, Spiders and More Spiders - Posted: 6/15/2010 If you've been outside gardening lately, or even simply taking a closer look at the greenery around you, you probably noticed that you were not quite alone. Indeed, the coming of the warm weather also sparks the coming of a plethora of new life, among them insects and spiders. And if you live in the lower 48 states, Mexico or Central America, you may have seen one of the featured species on EOL - Argiope aurantia - the Black and Yellow Argiope. Argiope aurantia is one of the "largest and most colorful orbweaving spiders from northeastern to southwestern North American." As orbweavers, Argiope aurantia build spiral, wheel-shaped webs, the round shape of which gives this spider and those with similar webs their "orbweaver" name. The life expectancy of Argiope aurantia in temperate climates is a mere year, with life lasting from birth in the fall to the "first harsh frost in the following year." In warmer climates and captivity, however, the outlook is slightly better for the females, which may live several years. Unfortunately for the males, they probably die after mating in their first year. Nevertheless, the conservation status for this species is good, as their commonality and widespread distribution currently ensures that they are in no danger of going extinct anytime soon. Argiope aurantia is one of the many species of spiders and other invertebrates featured in this week's book of the week, A Manual of the Common Invertebrate Animals, Exclusive of Insects, by Henry Sherring Pratt (1923), contributed by the Marine Biological Laboratory at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Within this volume, Argiope aurantia is described as, "Body large and conspicuous, being often 25mm. long, with long legs; abdomen black and 2 bright yellow or orange bands underneath; cephalothorax gray above and yellow underneath; the web is sometimes 2 feet in diameter and has a zigzag band of silk across the middle; the male has a small, irregular web nearby; [found] in grass and bushes; in open fields, especially near water." Take a moment to look more closely at this colorful species on EOL and within this week's book of the week. And if you're out and about this summer, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for "zigzag bands of silk" in the grass and bushes, for you might just find that the spash of bright orange or yellow in the middle of the web is indeed Argiope aurantia, the Black and Yellow Argiope. |
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Book of the Week: Species Highlight - The Eastern Painted Turtle - Posted: 6/3/2010 Imagine that you are strolling through the forest on a fine summer morning. The birds are chirping merrily above your head, and an occasional squirrel scurries across the path in front of you. Suddenly, you reach a clearing, in the midst of which is a large pond. As you take a moment to look around, you suddenly notice a log floating carelessly through the water. Except, this is no ordinary log! Indeed, it appears to be moving! On closer inspection, you realize that this is not just a log, but a log covered with as many as 50 painted turtles, all basking in the warm summer sun. While you may never have experienced this yourself, this is indeed a sight which you might see should you find yourself around freshwater anywhere in North America from Southern Canada to northern Mexico. It is the sight of Chrysemys picta, also known as the Eastern Painted Turtle - the most common turtle in North America and one of the featured species this week on EOL. Chrysemys picta is brightly marked, with a "relatively flat upper shell with red and yellow markings on a black or greenish brown background." Capable of living several decades, they "prefer living in freshwater that is quiet, shallow, and has a thick layer of mud." While relatively common and abundant, some populations are "threatened by the destruction of their habitat," and "in Canada, painted turtles have been placed on the federal blue list, which identifies animals considered vulnerable to human activities or natural events, but not immediately threatened." Chrysemys picta is very descriptively discussed in this week's book of the week, Amphibia and reptiles (1901), by Hans Gadow. As of 1901, the Eastern Painted Turtle was "one of the few species of which, thanks to L. Agassiz, complete data of growth from the new born to the old age are known." Here, Gadow refers to L. Agassiz's work Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America, volume 1 (1857), which articulates the growth of this species over time.
Take a moment to peruse Gadow's description of this turtle, as well as many other amphibians and reptiles, in Amphibia and reptiles. And remember, if you're ever out strolling through the forest and come across a pond with a "moving log," be sure to take a closer look, for it might just prove to be a hoard of Eastern Painted Turtles basking in the sun. |
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BHL and Vienna! BHL-Global Updates - Posted: 6/1/2010So, as many of you may already know, BHL has gone global - way global, with BHL-Europe and BHL-China well underway, and a memorandum of understanding has just been signed with Australia. BHL and the Bibliotecha Alexandrina (for an Arab-language BHL) have had some preliminary discussions. Many of our BHL staff are currently in Vienna, Austria working with the BHL-Europe team to discuss project details and developments. Here's a short update from one of our own, Constance Rinaldo of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard; Ernst Mayr Library, regarding the exciting developments of BHL on a global scale:
  "BHL staff have just completed several days of our first BHL meeting: BHL-Europe that is. The weather in Vienna has been warm and humid with rain for part of most days. Our BHL-Europe colleagues are productive, energetic and committed, including working through lunch on Sunday May 30! Over the course of the week, we spent many hours discussing PR, communication and dissemination, GUIDs, the GRIB (a tool used by the BHL staff to articulate which books each institution will scan), use cases scenarios for workflow and user survey. Our BHL-Europe colleagues seemed pleased with the help and discussion we offered, and we also gathered new ideas. Europeana has coordinated logos among the partners and they have a model which may serve BHL-global well. Several of us had an amazing tour of the libraries of the Natural History Museum in Vienna where most of the book collections are still tied to the specimen collections. The tour ended with viewing Vienna from the roof of the Natural History Museum and an impromptu lunch provided by Andrea Kourgli, the Librarian."Photos:
Top: General library collections, Natural History Museum in Vienna.
Bottom: BHL staff Martin Kalfatovic (back left) and Suzanne Pilsk (back right) having lunch in museum librarian Andrea Kourgli's (front left) office.
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Conservation 101: Near Threatened - Posted: 5/24/2010 The Aye-Aye. Also known as Daubentonia madagascar-iensis. This creature is peculiar, even by the lemur's standards of peculiarity. It has a distinctively slender and very long middle finger used to seek out grubs and other possible food sources from tree trunks, like a woodpecker. They have dark brown or black fur that can have white flecks at the tip. The Aye-aye's tail is much longer than its body in a way that frustrates our expectations for proportion and, well, let's just say the eyes are intense. Further, the aye-aye's mammary glands are located near the groin and persistent ova production allows reproduction for the entire life span of a female aye-aye. These strange and nocturnal primates are found almost exclusively in Madagascar and live in the canopies of rain forests. Their status as near-threatened has two main sources. First, it's the result of local superstition.  Aye-ayes are viewed as harbingers of evil and death and they are often killed on sight. One cannot help but suspect if these creatures were perhaps a little softer around the edges, a little less freaky, they might have avoided their local status as a boogie man. And though they are currently protected by law, well meaning villagers often kill them in an effort to mitigate the bad luck. And, secondly, deforestation and the loss of their original habitat also contributes to the decline of the species. Aye-ayes are forced to move closer to villages as they lose their treetop habitats and as we've seen, the villages are mostly bad luck for aye-ayes! Although there is much we still don't know about the Aye-aye (used to be classified as a rodent, for example), check out the Primate Fact-sheet from the University of Wisconsin for information regarding morphology, behavior and other detailed descriptions. |
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BHL Turns Three! - Posted: 5/13/2010 Happy Birthday, BHL! Three years ago this month, the Biodiversity Heritage Library began scanning books aimed at increasing access to the world's vast array of biodiversity literature. While the word "dent" may be too strong to describe our goal of 100% completion of the universe of biodiversity literature, as you can see below, steady growth continues. Back in 2007, while busy working on the repository's basic architecture, we had 228 items scanned. Roughly 12 and two thirds Traditional Library Shelves. Today's numbers are a bit more impressive: 2,318 shelves worth of scanned material! Luckily, we don't really need to find space to store each item as scanning marches ever forward!  01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110010 01110100 01101000 01100100 01100001 01111001 That's binary for Happy Birthday BHL!   |
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Book of the Week: The Power of Illustration - Posted: 5/3/2010 Illustrations play an integral role in the work of taxonomists, and they lend a depth, beauty, and sometimes pure romanticism to the volumes containing them. Case in point: this week's book of the week, Our Country's Fishes and How to Know Them: A Guide to all the Fishes of Great Britain (1902) by W.J. Gordon. This charming book contains over 30 plates illustrating the myriad of ichthyoids found in Great Britain. Furthermore, the lists of these fish are itemized according to their local and popular names. As the author points out, the purpose of this volume is the "ready identification of our native species, whether sea-water, fresh-water, or estuarine...[and] as the number of species found in British waters is not large, space has been found for a series of short notes..." So, take a few moments to look through the colorful plates depicting the many and varied species of fish found in Great Britain, and feel free to keep a copy of these illustrations for yourself by downloading high resolution images of these pages by clicking on the "Download Images" options found in the drop down menu entitled "Download/About This Book" when on the page viewer screen. Enjoy! |
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Link redirection and ID stability - Posted: 4/26/2010We have recently updated BHL to allow us to better handle situations where titles or items are taken offline. The key problem that occurs when things are taken offline is that the links to those items are now broken. Anyone who has linked to those titles/items or uses our data exports and/or APIs to access them is affected. In some cases, titles/items are taken offline because of serious quality issues with the scans or because of copyright concerns. In those cases, there is little we can do other than "break" the links to those items. In other cases, however, items may be rescanned and replaced by a new item. Or, two libraries might contribute the same title to BHL, and we at BHL combined those two titles into one. These are the cases for which we can preserve the links. The change we have made is to allow our librarians to designate a "replaced by" identifier when titles/items are taken offline. So, if item 1000 is rescanned as item 2000, we can now take item 1000 offline, but redirect incoming requests for that item to item 2000. The same is now possible when two (or more) titles are merged into one... requests for the titles that are taken offline as a part of the merging process can now be redirected to the title that remains online. Following is a more detailed explanation of how the various parts of BHL are affected. biodiversitylibrary.org If a title/item has been set to redirect to another title/item, then when you attempt to access the original page you will be automatically redirected to its replacement. For example, if you navigate to http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/3935 you will be redirected to http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/7347 . Likewise, navigating to http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/23127 will result in a redirect to http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/28474 . Data Exports The bulk data exports that are generated on a monthly basis contain only active items and published titles. Because of this, redirects are not indicated in the data exports (since redirects apply to item that are no longer active and/or published). Keep in mind, though, that if a third party has a copy of an older data export which contains titles/items that have subsequently been replaced, then when that third party follows the links contained in the exports they will be automatically be redirected to the correct title/item. API The following API methods honor the redirects: GetItemByIdentifier
GetItemMetadata
GetItemPages
GetTitleBibTeX
GetTitleByIdentifier
GetTitleEndNote
GetTitleItems
GetTitleMetadata Using the earlier examples, a call to GetTitlemMetadata with a parameter of 3935 will return the metadata for title 7347. Likewise, a call to GetItemMetadata with a parameter of 23127 will return the metadata for item 28474. Detailed information our APIs can be found here: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/api2/docs/docs.html Final Thoughts
It's possible that you may find some titles/items that have a replacement item but have not been properly redirected. If that is the case, kindly let us know. Also, keep in mind that some titles/items may be taken offline and there may not be a valid replacement available. Please accept our apologies if you are affected by this situation. |
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Book of the Week: Highlighting the Australian Giant Cuttlefish - Posted: 4/20/2010 For this week's book of the week, we highlight another of EOL's featured species - Sepia apama, perhaps better-known as the Australian Giant Cuttlefish. With a maximum recorded mantle length of 520 mm and a weight of 6.2 kg, the Sepia apama is the largest species of cuttlefish in the world. Australian Giant Cuttlefish are masters of camouflage. They are capable of altering their appearance in dozens of ways in order to mimic their surroundings. For instance, not only can they alter their skin patterns, but they are also capable of changing their skin texture as the need arises. Such ingenious texture alterations are achieved by either arm contortions, which allow the animal to mimic nearby algae, or through the "sprouting" of papillae, or "spiky skin projections," which mimic "the physical texture of the surrounding seaweed, rock or coral." Take a few minutes to investigate this amazing critter on EOL, and dive a little deeper into the early development of cuttlefish at large ( Sepia officinalis, the Common Cuttlefish) in this week's book of the week, Recherches sur les premières phases du développement de la seiche (Sepia officinalis), by Louis Marius Vialleton (1888). The plates located at the end of this book give a particularly detailed view of the development of these intelligent invertebrates. This week's Book of the Week, Recherches sur les premières phases du développement de la seiche (Sepia officinalis), by Louis Marius Vialleton (1888), was contributed by the Smithsonian Institution. |
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Updates to API & Tech Documents - Posted: 4/15/2010New updates have been released for the BHL API, plus new documentation about data exports and other services are now available on the Developer Tools and API section of the BHL wiki. The BHL Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of web services that can be invoked via HTTP queries (GET/POST requests) or SOAP. Responses can be received in one of three formats: JSON, XML, or XML wrapped in a SOAP envelope.
Version 1 (formerly the BHL Name Services): Updated documentation for the first version of the API can be found at http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/api/docs/docs.html. This version of the API is provided solely to maintain backwards compatibility.
Version 2: The documentation for the latest version of the API can be found at http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/api2/docs/docs.html. The first version of the API was limited to data related to scientific names found in the BHL collection; version 2 adds access to title, author, volume, and page information. Please note that users are required to obtain an API Key from http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/getapikey.aspx in order to use version 2 of the API. This is the preferred version of the API.
View the API Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use. |
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Conservation 101: Least Concern - Posted: 4/14/2010 As part of our on-going series related to the International Year of Biodiversity, we'll take a closer look at conservation status and occasionally highlight species in each rank. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is the primary global organization responsible for risk assessment organizes threat in 8 categories--Extinct, Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Conservation Dependent, near Threatened, and Least Concerned. Pictured above, we have the Oklahoma State bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher, or Tyrannus forficatus, first described in 1789. They aggressively defend their territories against intrusions by conspecifics and in the spring, a flamboyant performance with their long scissor-like tail, is part of the courtship dance. Such self-assertive behavior has served this bird well; it's squarely situated in the Least Concern ranking for threat of extinction, so generations to come can enjoy this fascinating species. Enjoy. :) |
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Book of the Week: A Call to Garden! - Posted: 4/5/2010 Spring is in the air, and that means blooms are just around the corner! And this, of course, means that all you gardeners out there can dig your potting tools out of the shed and get ready to get your hands dirty. We thought we'd help by highlighting one of the many valuable gardening guides in our collection. As we sifted through our collection, one book in particular caught our eye. It seems that gardening isn't just a modern pastime (not that this was ever supposed), but in fact it was a popular activity for women of the nineteenth century. Many guides to "ladies' gardening" were published during that time, highlighting the different ways to stir and measure soil, sow seeds, and prune overzealous growth. Case in point: Gardening for Ladies. This 1851 publication provides all of the instruction a lady of nineteenth century America could ask for in regards to gardening, starting with the basics. Indeed, the work took a decided view of "begin at the beginning," supposing no "previous knowledge of the subject," as their European counterparts, they claimed, were so apt to do. So, before you dig down into the soil, take a look at this week's book of the week, Gardening for Ladies. Even if you aren't a nineteenth century lady (and if you are and still intend to garden, more power to you!), you still might learn something! This week's book of the week, Gardening for Ladies (1851), by Mrs. Jane Loudon, was contributed by the New York Botanical Garden. |
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Groundbreaking News! - Posted: 4/1/2010 BHL is thrilled to announce that construction has already begun on our brand new brick-and-mortar library that will house a physical copy of each of the 75,000 volumes currently digitized and, until now, only available online. Demand for physical access to the digitized copies has been steadily growing over the years, so in an effort to reach users without access to the Internet, we've begun the painstaking process of transcription. We realize that much of the value of the BHL collection is derived from the sense of history that one receives while researching these texts--many 300 and 400 years old. In order to preserve that sense, we are replicating the publishing processes and techniques that were common during and before the peak of the industrial revolution. It's not cheap and it's far from easy, but we think you'll understand why we have gone to all the trouble as you enter the lobby of our new building. The card catalog alone sprawls an impressive half acre. Librarians will be on hand to begin issuing BHL library cards for lending as early as next Fall. See You Soon! April Fool's Day! |
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Book of the Week: Calling All Chocolate Lovers - Posted: 3/23/2010 To all you chocolate lovers out there: one of the featured species on EOL this week was Theobroma cacao, better known as Cacao, from whence chocolate is created. So, in the spirit of collaboration, and with a desire to feature something as deliciously addictive as chocolate, we thought we'd pull some inspiration from this featured botanical delight and showcase Theobroma cacao in this week's book of the week. So, check out To the River Plate and back : the narrative of a scientific mission to South America, with observations upon things seen and suggested (1913), by W.J. Holland. This work features eight color plates and seventy-eight other drawings taken from the author's trip to the "Silver River" in South America. As the author so clearly outlines in his preface, this narrative is "the record of a pleasant journey, during which I saw much and learned much which was of interest to me and may also be of interest to my readers." And the pilgrimmage must indeed have been pleasant, because W.J. Holland encountered Theobroma cacao, a chief export of Trinidad, along the way!
Check out Theobroma cacao on EOL! This week's book of the week, To the River Plate and back : the narrative of a scientific mission to South America, with observations upon things seen and suggested (1913), by W.J. Holland, was contributed by The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden. |
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Help Us Help You: Announcing the BHL Survey 2010! - Posted: 3/15/2010Over the past few weeks, we here at the Biodiversity Heritage Library have been hard at work developing a user (that's you!) survey. We'd like to know more about what you like about us, naturally, but we also need to know what you don't like. As you may already be aware, the BHL is a work in progress. As such, we need your input to help guide the progression of our work over the next few years. We humbly request your assistance in responding to the BHL Survey 2010. This survey is a key component in our continuing efforts to build a library which is responsive to and serves the needs of our user communities (again, that's you!). We can't emphasize enough the value we place on your responses and ideas. They are sincerely appreciated and vital to further development. The BHL is presently comprised over 26 million scanned pages of biodiversity literature, and has established partnerships with projects in Europe (BHL-Europe) and China (BHL-China) and is engaged in discussion to establish partner projects in Brazil, Australia, and Egypt. The development of this survey was a joint project of the BHL and BHL- Europe member institutions and the responses will inform further development as we continue to embrace our global heritage of biodiversity. Click here to take the survey. Again, thank you for your input!
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Book of the Week: A Look at the Endangered Species List - Posted: 2/22/2010The awareness of the need to protect endangered species has grown widely in the past few decades. The decimation of species throughout the world due to both natural and man-made conditions has pushed many species to the brink of extinction. While there are many efforts underway to protect and revive the species on the endangered list today, the struggle of many species to survive is still uncertain. This week's book of the week, Selected vertebrate endangered species of the seacoast of the United States (1980), published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, outlines some of the species that were facing this battle for survival thirty years ago.
For this week's post, we highlight three of the species listed as endangered in this publication, and provide an update about the species' current status. A link to the Encyclopedia of Life entry for each species is also included, so feel free to dig a little deeper into each of these unique, threatened, and resilient creatures.
 The Red Wolf (Canis rufus)The Red Wolf was listed as Federally endangered on October 3, 1970 in the states of Delaware, Missouri, Mississippi and Texas. It was threatened due to predator control programs and federal, state, and local bounty hunter activity in these regions, as this species was seen to be a threat to livestock in these areas.
Current Status: In an effort to protect this species, "fourteen remaining red wolves were placed in a captive-breeding facility; they have become the founders of the present red wolf population. Currently, 200+ red wolves exist, and reintroductions are occurring in a few areas, including North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains." The Red Wolf in EOL. The Red Wolf in this week's Book of the Week. The Whooping Crane (Grus americana)
 The Whooping Crane was listed as Federally endangered on March 11, 1967 in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Texas. The species' survival was put to the test due to a reduction in breeding and wintering habitats as a result of drainage, agriculture, the Gulf of Intracoastal Waterway, and human settlements. As this week's book of the week points out, "Whooping cranes avoid areas of human disturbance even if the habitat is otherwise suitable." In 1977, there were only 75 whooping cranes in the wild and 27 in captivity. Current Status: With the rescue efforts that began in 1968, the number of whooping cranes gradually increased to 96 in 1995. There are now two populations in the wild. The Whooping Crane in EOL. The Whooping Crane in this week's Book of the Week.  The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis)
The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker was listed as Federally endangered on October 13, 1970 in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. This species, according to
Selected vertebrate endangered species of the seacoast of the United States, was endangered as a result of a decrease in the quantity and quality of a suitable habitat, primarily due to short-term-rotation timber management. The practice of short-term-rotation timber management "prevents the development of mature, diseased pine trees" which are necessary for this species' roosting and nesting. Current Status: While there have been two recovery plans written to restore this population, the first, established in 1979, was never acted upon, and the second, established in 1985, has been criticised, though not revised, and no other plan has been written. "Recently, however, new approaches to conservation including old cavity restoration, artificial cavity construction, and the introduction of females into isolated groups, have made some positive advancments towards the increase in populations. The total population is now estimated at about 7,500 individuals."
The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker in EOL.
The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker in this week's Book of the Week.
This week's book of the week, Selected vertebrate endangered species of the seacoast of the United States (1980), published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was contributed by the MBLWHOI library.
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2010 International Year of Biodiversity - Posted: 2/19/2010 The United Nations has been marking years for special observation since 1959. Since then, international relief agencies have rallied around Human Rights (1968), Apartheid (1978/79), Literacy (1994), and other issues that pose a global threat to sustained peace and prosperity. This year, the United Nations has named 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. The message is pretty simple. Individual lives are dependent on a healthy network of life. Human activity in the form of industry and commerce poses a threat to the health of that network. Coordinated human activity is necessary to reduce that threat. The umbrella is wide. Stay tuned for more updates about the International Year of Biodiversity as we cover issues ranging from endangered species to the discovery of sustainable alternatives to fuels and energy production. Activities, reports, and inspiration from a wide variety of local and international groups are available through the IYB website found here. And become a fan of the official Facebook page here to participate in ongoing discussions and connect with others involved in facets of environmental protection that matter to you. |
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In case you're wondering... - Posted: 2/17/2010As you may know, BHL recently acquired tens of thousands additional titles by ingesting open access texts supplied by the Internet Archive. Read the original announcement here.One title in particular stands out as one of those works that really highlights the passage of time, the evolution of scientific thought, and associative leaps we take for granted is Robert Lee Bates' 1923 investigation "The effects of cigar and cigarette smoking on certain psychological and physiological functions".
The author quantifies the effects smoking on the performance of daily tasks that require a variety of cognitive and physiological coordinations. I found the methods of the dart throwing sequence and the description of the darts used particularly interesting (made of wood, six inches long including the feathers). A smoker's word choice is also considered in free association studies. Do we repeat ourselves more after smoking? Does a non-smoker use more colorful language, favoring ornate description? While we take for granted that smoking is toxic, we don't generally think of its effects on cognitive ability in the same way we would a shot of tequila. Should we? What makes a drug a drug? and if smoking interferes with hitting a bull's eye, what about sugar? For me, the BHL never ceases to provide an opportunity to consider and (re)evaluate our notions of scientific truth. I won't give away all the fun and seemingly antiquated bits of scientific inquiry. But, suffice it to say, at the end of the day back in 1923, more study was needed. :) Enjoy. |
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