EML Blog

Celebrating Robert Gilbert

Robert A. Gilbert (1870-1942) was an African-American naturalist and photographer, the long-time assistant to ornithologist William Brewster and a staff member of the MCZ.  He was an Associate of the American Ornithologists' Union.  The MCZ Archives holds some correspondence between Gilbert and Brewster, accessible through the Biodiversity Heritage...

Read more about Celebrating Robert Gilbert

Happy Earth Day! MCZ Image Tagging Event April 21-24, 2020

Join the Ernst Mayr Library and MCZ Archives in a tagging event for MCZ or other FLICKR images from the Biodiversity Heritage Library! We are celebrating Earth Day by making species images easier to find.  The Ernst Mayr Library and MCZ Archives is a founding member of the Biodiversity Heritage Library, making biodiversity literature and archives available to the world.  Tagging is a way to...

Read more about Happy Earth Day! MCZ Image Tagging Event April 21-24, 2020

Remote Library Resources: Tips from the Ernst Mayr Library Staff

The Ernst Mayr Library location is currently closed, but the staff are working remotely and available to help.  While we cannot access our print collection we recommend the online resources below. Some repositories, such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library, are always open access, and some which have been behind paywalls or other barriers are open during the COVID-19 crisis.  Digitized materials from the Ernst Mayr Library collection are available through our website and the...

Read more about Remote Library Resources: Tips from the Ernst Mayr Library Staff

Transcribe William Brewster's Journals and Diaries

The Ernst Mayr Library has digitized more than 56,000 pages of the journals and diaries of William Brewster, a prolific ornithologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  These are mostly handwritten volumes that are not suitable for Optical Character Recognition software.  To make these searchable and more discoverable individually, they need to be transcribed. Volumes are available for  transcription on the DigiVol platform.   Here are some instructions on how to get started.

First you will need to register at ...

Read more about Transcribe William Brewster's Journals and Diaries

BHL at the 2019 Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) and Digital Data in Biodiversity Meetings

SPNHC and Digital Data Conferences

Martin Kalfatovic (BHL Program Director) and Connie Rinaldo (Chair of the BHL Members’ Council) attended the recent Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections(SPNHC) meeting held 25-31 May 2019 and hosted by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. The theme of the meeting was “Making the Case for Natural History Collections”.

There were opportunities for...

Read more about BHL at the 2019 Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) and Digital Data in Biodiversity Meetings