Imagine a natural history library open 24 hours a day with all your essential journals and books inside.  The

Biodiversity Heritage Library will be that Library.  It is available 24 hours, wherever you are, for free, with over

38 million pages of information already scanned and more being added everyday.

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

It all started about 2005 with a consortium of Natural History and Botanical Libraries meeting to organise the what

and how of a freely available resource of biodiversity literature.  The consortium was mostly based in the USA (eg

Smithsonian, Missouri Botanic Garden, American Museum of Natural History) plus the NHM and Kew. The idea was to

create a freely available resource containing the legacy literature of biodiversity taken from the collections of

the members of the consortium. The first portal was launched was in 2007.

The participating institutions realised that their collections of rare and historic scientific information that are

essential for taxonomics and systematics were available to visitors only.  Natural history is unusual in science in

that historic data is essential and must be consulted.  Hence BHL is destined to be one of the largest subject

specific resources on the Internet.

The material scanned into BHL includes anything in the public domain (upto 1923 in the USA and 100 years old in the

UK) or items where agreement has been reached with the copyright holder.  Recently material has been ingested from

sources other than the BHL consortium members such as the Internet Archive, the University of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign.  Additionally any user may request items for digitisation (using the feedback button on the top

right of the BHL screen).

This amazing resource is free to use and is available anywhere that has Internet access, so from the Museum, from

home and out in the field.  All pages are index for scientific names using UBIO (http://ubio.org/ ).  Material can

be downloaded as a PDF or OCR, all or page by page or just images.  The bibliographic information can be downloaded

in MODS, BibTeX or EndNote format.  The information downloaded can be saved, re-used or re-purposed freely, see the

BHL Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/. BHL also has a presence on Facebook, Twitter and

itunes, and has a blog featuring book of the week, articles by users of BHL, information about meetings and new

developments, and much more!

By promoting itself as an open digital collection, BHL allows the taxonomic names and associated bibliographic

information to be used by other digital initiatives such as Encyclopedia of life   http://eol.org/, Tropicas

http://tropicos.org/, Biostor http://biostor.org/ and Citebank http://citebank.org/.

The BHL family is expanding with collections coming online for Europe, Australia, China, Brazil and Egypt.  Also

negotiations are underway to initialise a project for Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Chris scanning at the Scribe machine.

The Natural History Museum has contributed 639 titles to BHL since scanning started in 2007.  Scanning is carried

out using a Scribe machine which incorporates a super structure that supports two cameras on sliding tracks, lights

(continuous, not flash), a bed and glass platen set at an angle, with a foot pedal for raising and lowering the

platen. The Cameras are Canon Mark IIs. Images are processed using software developed at Internet Archive

(processing includes cropping, rotating/ de-skewing, and converting from RAW to JPEG2000) and then uploaded to the

Internet Archive, where they are further converted to .pdf, .epub, etc. The scans need to be associated with the

appropriate metadata from the Library catalogue, achieved using Z39.50 technology.  Library staff are heavily

involved in the preparation of items for scanning.

Help expand the BHL user-base and have a look today.  If you need any help please contact me via library@nhm.ac.uk.

Care and display of books workshop

19th September 2012

Natural History Museum

This workshop introduces the key elements of good practice for the care and display of books through a series of presentations, videos and practical sessions.  This introductory workshop is suitable for Library staff and Archivists and all those with responsibility for book collections.

Subjects included in the workshop:

• Threats to Library collections
• The Structure of books
• Book Curation
• Basic book repair - theory
• Bindings: materials and spine structures
• Temporary Book Display

The workshop is led by Museum Library Staff:

Paper Conservator:  Eleanor Russell – joined the Library & Archives team in 2011. She was previously at the British Library specialising in art on paper, and prior to this she worked at the British Museum, the National Archives and the St. Paul's Cathedral architectural archives.

Special Collections Librarian: Lisa Di Tommaso – has worked in both the General & Zoology and Earth Sciences Libraries with the library’s special collections, and has a particular interest in book conservation.

This workshop held at the Natural History Museum starts at 10.00am and will finish at 5pm.  The course fee of £175 includes tea, coffee and lunch. Please advise us of any special dietary requirements.

For a booking form or for further information please contact the Library & Archives library@nhm.ac.uk

Hurry places are limited!

The Library catalogue is available online at Library Catalogue

If you wish to view these or any other items, please contact the library to arrange an appointment library@nhm.ac.uk or 020 7942 5460

Anthropology / Palaeontology

Palaeontology

The geology of Ben Nevis and Glen Coe and the surrounding country : explanation of geological sheet 53 / by E.B. Bailey and H.B. Maufe ... [et al.]

Edinburgh : HMSO, 1960, 1976 printing.

P 72Aa o BAI

Botany

Methods in bryological research, newly revised edition / edited by The 40th Commemorative Publication Committee

Japan : Bryological Society of Japan, 2011.

BRYOPHYTES 582.32(5) MET

Illustrated grasses of Korea /|c[Korea National Arboretum]

[Seoul] : Korea National Herbarium, 2011.

581.9(519) ILL

Conservation checklist of the trees of Uganda / Kalema, James

Kew : Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2012.

581.9(676.1) KAL

UK PlantSci 2012 : SEB Sponsored Symposium / John Innes Centre

Norwich : Plant Science, 2012.

58:061.63 PLA Q

That hard hot land : botanical collecting expedition in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 1933-1934 : undertaken by James Edgar Dandy, Cecil Graham Traquair Morison, Dunstan Skilbeck / Keenan, Mary L.

Parbold, Lancs : Keenan, 2011, cop. 2010.

93(624) KEE Q

Entomology

Checklist and bibliography of the fauna of Acari (Arachnida) in Bulgaria / Petar Beron

[Sofia] : Prof. Marin Drinov Academic Pub. House, 2011

E ARACHNIDA 29B BER

Quarantine and Identification of Bostrichidae (Coleoptera) / Chen Zhilin

[Bejing: China Agriculture Press ], 2011

E COLEOPTERA C.92

Heteroptera / Ljiljana Protic

Beograd : Prirodnjacki Muzej, 2011

E DC HEMIPTERA P.22

General

Citizen science : public participation in environmental research / edited by Janis L. Dickinson and Rick Bonney ; foreword by Richard Louv ; afterword by John W. Fitzpatrick

Ithaca : Comstock Pub. Associates, 2012

L 66B o DIC

The rivers of Wales : a natural resource of international and historical significance / edited by D. Dudley Williams and Catherine A. Duigan

Leiden, The Netherlands : Backhuys Publishers ; Weikersheim, Germany : Margraf Publishers, 2009

L 72Aa q RIV

Painted panorama, 1800-1870: [exhibition], 1 to 30 November 1985.: paintings from the Mitchell and Dixon collections of the State Library of New South Wales

Sydney : Blaxland Gallery, 1985

L 85 o NEW

Zoology

How animals see the world : comparative behavior, biology, and evolution of vision / edited by Olga F. Lazareva, Toru Shimizu, and Edward A. Wasserman.

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2012.

Z 10A o LAZ

Biology and management of the world Tarpon and Bonefish fisheries / edited by Jerald S. Ault.

Boca Raton [Fla.] ; London : CRC Press, 2008

Z 67 o AUL

I was in an Oxfam shop the other day, idly leafing through a book entitled Face of Britain: How our Genes Reveal the History of Britain,  when my eyes fell with delight upon a reproduction of a very familiar painting, an imaginative re-creation of Neanderthal family life. I felt a warm glow of affection for the picture not just because I knew the artist but because it instantly took me back to my childhood which, perhaps surprisingly in such a context , is represented in the painting.  I was only too happy to contribute to charity as I purchased the book, pleased to have a copy of this much-reproduced image, which happens to depict my brother and me as childish little Neanderthals having a bit of a scrap.

The original watercolour was painted in 1950 by Maurice Wilson (1914-1987) for the Natural History Museum where he became a friend of my father Dr Kenneth Oakley (1911-1981), best known for his role in helping expose the Piltdown Hoax. The Face book was written in 2006 by Robin McKie to accompany a Channel Four television series ,  which I had enjoyed, not least because one of the major contributors was Chris Stringer, who worked with my father at the museum in the 1970s, studying ‘Ape Men’, as I would have put it somewhat loosely as a child.

Homo neanderthalensis, Neanderthal Man by Maurice Wilson

NHM Image reference: 001983

Whenever there is some new speculation about interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans it's not uncommon to see Maurice's atmospheric re-creation of Neanderthal domestic life used as an illustration , as with a recent issue of Current World Archaeology (No.49). Whenever I see the painting it amuses me to think that the two small boys tussling in the background were based directly on Maurice's observations of me and my brother as kids. I hasten to add that the naked adults bear little resemblance to my parents. Well perhaps my dad...

It was when I was a grown up myself that Maurice told me that my older brother Chris and I were the models for his Neanderthal scene, based on watching us endlessly 'squabbling' at home when we were aged around six and four. I remember Maurice gleefully mimicking my mother's admonition to 'stop bickering!'

Maurice was a real character, as I recall from his regular and keenly-awaited visits to our home in Amersham, Bucks, some thirty-odd miles from London. An eccentric, bohemian dresser, he'd bound out of the car and stride up the front path clad in a long coat with string round the waist plus open-toed sandals and a raffish cravat at his neck. His hair was worn fairly long in oiled ringlets like a stereotypical gypsy, making him for years my image of what 'an artist' was like, not unlike some Agatha Christie suspect. He had a beguiling approach with children, never talking down to us but full of little tricks and jokes to keep us entertained, although it was always clear that he was deeply serious about his work as a natural history illustrator.

My parents greatly admired his artistic skill which was characterised by a deceptively simple mastery of line and shading, enriched by subtle colour washes and an overall softness of tone. Several of his paintings and prints used to adorn the walls at home in Amersham and they are still much loved in the family. One of those I inherited used to hang above my father's desk in his study, a large sketch Maurice did in April 1950 of 'Australopithecos', looking faintly melancholy and soulful, as though dimly conscious of his evolutionary fate. Whether conjuring up an imagined past in deep antiquity or simply painting feathers and fur from direct observation, there was always a warmth and humanity about Maurice's work, often caught in the poignant expressiveness of a creature's eyes.

Because of my fondness for Maurice Wilson and his art I always have a fear that his interpretations of the past - such as the 'Oakley Neanderthals' - will somehow be overtaken by modern research theories, and fade into neglect as mere historical curios. If that happens I hope the sheer quality of his artistry across the range of his output will ensure his name is not forgotten. His love of the natural world must have inspired countless children of all ages through illustrations of real beauty in their own right, as seen in museum exhibits and all manner of publication, scholarly and popular. 

As for my own curious status as a Neanderthal Kid, it's worth adding that at the height of my father's media fame over Piltdown in the mid-fifties I'd repeatedly get taunted by older boys in the street in Amersham. It would start with ''Ere, ain't your dad a boffin?' Then, sidling up to prod and shove me they would assert that I was the 'son of an ape man', with the more knowledgeable even insisting that I was actually 'descended from a Neanderthal', with all the usual knuckle-dragging gestures and heavy-browed facial expressions. Perhaps they were right, and Maurice Wilson was on to something.

by Giles Oakley

How wonderful to see the product of another inspired visit to the Natural History Museum!

http://sophiewiltshire.blogspot.co.uk/

The Library catalogue is available online at Library Catalogue

If you wish to view these or any other items, please contact the library to arrange an appointment library@nhm.ac.uk or 020 7942 5460

Anthropology / Palaeontology

Palaeontology

Erinaceomorpha and Soricomorpha (Insectivora, Mammalia) from the late Miocene of Ukraine / Barbara Rzebik-Kowalska and Valentin A. Nesin.

Kraków : Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences, 2010.

P 17 o RZE

Anthropology

Archaeomalacology revisited : non-dietary use of molluscs in archaeological settings : proceedings of the archaeomalacology sessions at the 10th ICAZ Conference, Mexico City, 2006 / edited by Canan Çakirlar

Oxford ; Oakville : Oxbow Books, 2011

A 3 o CAK

The Palaeolithic origins of human burial / Paul Pettitt.

Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2011

A 6B o PET

African genesis : perspectives on hominid evolution / edited by Sally C. Reynolds, Andrew Gallagher

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

A 7 o REY

Botany

Systematics, biodiversity and ecology of lichens / editors: Ingvar Kärnefelt, Mark R. D. Seaward & Arne Thell

Stuttgart : J. Cramer, 2012.

B LICHEN 582.29 BIB

Flora del Bajio y de Regiones Adyacentes. Fasciculo 176, Familia Typhaceae / por Jaime Raúl Bonilla-Barbosa y Betzy Santamaria Araúl

Pátzcuaro, México : Instituto de Ecologia, 2012.

B 581.9(79P9) FLO

Flora del Bajio y de Regiones Adyacentes. Fasciculo 175, Phrymaceae / por Emmanuel Pérez-Calix

Pátzcuaro, México : Instituto de Ecologia, 2012.

B 581.9(79P9) FLO

Flora del Valle de Tehuácan-Cuicatlán. Fascículo 84, Anacampserotaceae / Gilberto Ocampo-Acosta

Mexico : Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2011.

B 581.9(79P9) SOU

Flora del Valle de Tehuácan-Cuicatlán. Fascículo 85, Plumbaginaceae / Silvia Zumaya-Mendoza

Mexico : Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2011.

B 581.9(79P9) SOU

Flora del Valle de Tehuácan-Cuicatlán. Fascículo 86, Sapindaceae / Jorge Calónico-Soto

Mexico : Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2011.

B 581.9(79P9) SOU

Plants of Arizona : a field guide / Anne Orth Epple ; photography by Lewis E. Epple.

Guilford, Conn. : FalconGuides, 2012.

B 581.9(791) EPP

Vascular plants of the greater Yellowstone area : annotated catalog and atlas / by Erwin F. Evert.

Park Ridge, Ill. : Erwin F. Evert, 2010.

B 581.9(787) EVE Q

Entomology

Alticinae of Indochina / Lev N. Medvedev

Moscow : KMK scientific Press, 2009

E COLEOPTERA M.49b

Bee conservation : evidence for the effects of interventions / Lynn V. Dicks, David A. Showler & William J. Sutherland

Exeter : Pelagic, 2010

E HYMENOPTERA D.54

Bumblebees of Norfolk / Nick Owens, David Richmond

[Norwich] : Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, 2012

E HYMENOPTERA 0.13

General

The SAGE handbook of biogeography / edited by Andrew C. Millington, Mark A. Blumler, and Udo Schickhoff

Los Angeles ; London : SAGE, 2011

L 10E o MIL

The value of species / Edward L. McCord

New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2012

L 65A o MCC

Biodiversity of western Rhodopes (Bulgaria and Greece). II / editor, Petar Beron.

Sofia : Pensoft : National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 2011

L 72O o BER

Captain Cook : master of the seas / Frank McLynn

New Haven : Yale University Press, 2011

L 96A o COO MCL

Information 2.0 : new models of information production, distribution and consumption / Martin De Saulles.

London : Facet, 2012

L LIBRARIANSHIP 681.3 DES

Ambient findability / Peter Morville

Sebastopol, CA : O'Reilly, 2005.

L LIBRARIANSHIP 681.3 MOR

Mineralogy

Statistics in volcanology / edited by H.M. Mader ... [et al.]

London : Geological Society, 2006

M 551.21 MAD

Zoology

Biology of sharks and their relatives / editors, Jeffrey C. Carrier, John A. Musick, Michael R. Heithaus. 2^nd ed

Boca Raton : Taylor & Francis Group, 2012

Z FISH 22B CAR