The Biodiversity Heritage Library: 30 Million Pages of Taxonomic Literature & You

Editor's Notes

1. So, aside from the fact that there are over 30 million pages of taxonomic literature in the BHL, what exactly is it?
2. Concept of EOL (a web page for every species on earth) Image from
3. In other words, let’s think of EOL as a repository of natural history collections information. We can consider it our 21 st century Wunderkammer. So, here’s the famous image of Ferrante Imperato’s 16 th century cabinet (this is considered the first published image of such a thing, the genesis of the natural history museums where many of us work today) So, this is EOL– instead of a page for every species, let’s say there’s a place for every species…including some tiny dogs running around on the floor there. What we all know (and what Ferrante Imperato did as well) is that the study of these items involves more than just the objects themselves So, if this is EOL, Image from
4. This is BHL! The literature of species description, of biodiversity is a significant facet of the knowledge about life on earth. And the literature that informs, contextualizes, and enables further study is, as in Ferrante Imperato’s wunderkammer, out of reach to a large number of the people who need to use it!