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BHL has used name finding algorithms that analyze all of the scanned pages in BHL and extract out the scientific names within. This functionality was released in 2007 and has received minor enhancements in usability. To date more than 81 million potential name strings have been identified by the TaxonFinder algorithm, representing 1.6 million unique names.

So, Halloween’s just around the corner, so we at BHL thought it might be appropriate to highlight a species, and a book, appropriate for the season. Most likely, if you had to associate a single species from the animal kingdom with the spine-tingling glee of the Halloween experience, it would be the spider (unless you are a fan of the recent vampire craze, in which case you’ll likely choose a bat). Most people, when they think of a Halloween spider, probably draw to mind images of Black Widows, or simply enormous, generic, black, eight-legged beasts. However, did you ever think to imagine a spider with horns on its body? If not, well, you’re in luck.

As has been previously discussed, BHL has uncorrected text generated by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software for each of its scanned volumes, and that uncorrected text has implications for data mining and accurate search. OCR results are notoriously poor because the technology hasn’t improved much since it was “solved” for forms processing in the mid-1980’s, which doesn’t really help BHL at all with our challenge of getting accurate text for our heterogeneous digital library spanning more than 500 years of printed publications.

As we know, 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. Programming throughout the year in support of all things biodiverse has been wide-ranging. Activities for scientific explorations of climate change and habitat preservation abound as well as opportunities for local involvement and youth directed campaigns, like the 2010 International Biodiversity Art Competition.

On Saturday October 2 and Sunday October 3, 2010, Smithsonian Institution Libraries staff members Polly Lasker and Gil Taylor, plus volunteer John Hejna (Polly’s husband), promoted the Libraries’ services at a booth during the annual Autumn Conservation Festival at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) near Front Royal, Virginia.

So, our last book of the week took a look at Darwin’s voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle through the eyes of a child. We thought it fitting this week to continue with the theme of the H.M.S Beagle, wrapping it together with one of the featured species on EOL this week, the Sphoeroides angusticeps, or the Narrow-Headed Puffer.

The great scientific discoveries that have been made during the many incredible exploring expeditions throughout history have long interested both scientists and laymen alike, and perhaps none more so than the voyages undertaken by Charles Darwin himself on the H.M.S. Beagle. While the appeal of the narratives of these expeditions to adults may seem obvious, engaging children in such works is not always simple. The concern with “interest[ing] children in the study of natural history, and of physical and political geography”so that they might exhibit enthusiasm for nature throughout their lives is the chief concern of this week’s book of the week, What Mr. Darwin saw in his voyage round the world in the ship “Beagle” (1880), compiled from Darwin’s Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H. M. S. Beagle.