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The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.
Example of archival materials in BHL with crowdsourced transcription
Crowdsourced Transcriptions in BHL
We’ve added the ability for our Partners to upload crowdsourced transcriptions to BHL!

Crowdsourcing is an increasingly popular way to generate transcriptions that improve searching and discoverability of handwritten archival materials like field notes. Now, BHL Partners can upload transcriptions generated on Smithsonian Transcription Center, DigiVol, and From the Page, allowing you to easily search the full text of the corresponding archival materials digitized in BHL .

Dr. Alexis Mychajliw exploring potential asphaltic fossil localities on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. Photo by A Farrell.
Dr. Alexis Mychajliw
" BHL is an incredible resource that is particularly helpful for early career researchers who may not have the funds or connections to visit multiple museums or institutions to collect data ."

Screenshot of the BHL book viewer with the new article download feature highlighted
BHL Adds New Article Download Feature
We’ve added functionality to the BHL book viewer that makes it easier to generate a PDF for an article!

When you are viewing an article that has been defined in BHL, you can now quickly and easily generate a PDF of that article using our new “Download Article” option in the “Download Contents” dropdown menu .

Illustration of a fish by Lydia Moore (Hart) Green
Lydia Green and the Fish of Illinois
The Fishes of Illinois (1908) was intended to be the most complete published series of colored plates on American fish. Lydia M. (Hart) Green was an illustrator for this and many other publications for the Illinois Natural History Survey and others .

Illustration of fossil plants from James Parkinson's Organic Remains of a Former World (1811)
Unearthed! with Smithsonian Libraries
Explore paleobiology literature through the centuries in the new Unearthed! collection, curated by Smithsonian Libraries in celebration of the opening of the National Museum of Natural History’s Deep Time exhibit.

Unearthed! features hundreds of volumes from the history of paleontology, from the first book on fossils to use illustrations systematically — Gessner's De rerum fossilium (1565) — to modern publications recording 21st century paleontological research — like Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology .

Illustration of fake fossils from Lithographia (1740)
The “Lying Stones” of Johann Beringer
Beringer's 18th century monograph Lithographia presents many curious and whimsical fossils. Turns out, they were fakes. Beringer was deceived by his own colleagues!

Announcement about the expanded BHL FAQ
We’ve Expanded the BHL FAQ!
We’ve expanded the BHL FAQ, providing answers to the most common questions we receive from our users. For example...

Do you need help searching BHL? There’s an FAQ for that.

Do you want to know how to download content from BHL? The FAQ has you covered.

We encourage you to use the FAQ as your first stop for any questions about BHL, our collection, and our services.

Charles Lathrop Pack. Victory Gardens Feed the Hungry. c1919. Contributed in BHL from The Library of Congress.
"The Seeds of Victory Insure the Fruits of Peace"
During WWI and WWII, victory gardens were promoted as a way to increase food production during wartime. Charles Pack, a principal organizer of the movement, produced manuals like Victory Gardens Feed the Hungry to encourage Americans to join the cause .

Participants at the The Global Names Project workshop discuss progress in a morning briefing. Photo by Deborah Paul (iDigBio).
BHL at the Global Names Workshop
BHL representatives participated in the Global Names Workshop held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The workshop focused on exploring different methods for mining BHL content to extract a variety of data, including geographic information, people and organization names, and species identification keys. Participants also tested new ideas for linking BHL content with other systems such as TaxonWorks and Global Names .

Danielle Alesi PhD candidate at the University of Nebraska Lincoln
Danielle Alesi
" BHL is an amazing resource that scholars from many fields are lucky to have available to us. [It]...allows me to see many of my sources without having to travel to a library that holds them. "

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Inspiring Discovery through Free Access to Biodiversity Knowledge.
BHL makes it easier than ever for you to access the information you need to study and explore life on Earth…for free, anytime, anywhere.
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