This post was contributed by Kristen Bullard, librarian for the National Zoological Park.
Have you ever wondered why Rusty the red panda was paired with the female, Shama? Or been curious about how the black-footed ferret was saved from extinction in the wild? If so, then this Valentines’ themed post is for you!
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), in its global efforts to digitize biodiversity literature and make it freely available to the world, ensures that this precious knowledge is available to everyone, everywhere. The BHL currently provides access to over 42 million pages and over 87,000 images and is changing the face of research methodology. Scientists around the world are using BHL to identify and classify species, facilitate further scientific research, and support conservation efforts to prevent extinctions.
It is with warm wishes that we send off four retiring employees! Best of luck to Alice, Ann, Dave, and Ron!
The Smithsonian Libraries will offer new, paid internships for the Professional Development Program in the summer of 2014. These internships are open to graduate students interested in working in research and museum libraries. The Libraries will award up to three paid summer internships this academic year.
The Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library recently acquired Ippolito Salviani’s Aquatilium animalium historiae (Rome, 1554), a classic, foundational work on fishes. The book is one of three 16th-century works that established ichthyology as a modern science. The Libraries holds the other two – Belon’s De aquatilibus (1553, a Latin translation of his Histoire de la nature des estranges poissons marins, 1551) and Rondelet’s Libri de piscibus marinis (1554) – and has now completed the trio. The Aquatilium animalium historiae is a tremendous asset for the National Museum of Natural History’s curators in the Division of Fishes, who advised on the purchase.