In addition to BHL's participation at the TDWG 2013 meeting in Florence, BHL Members maintained an active presence at library and natural history conferences this fall.  Trish Rose-Sandler and Daron Dierkes presented two BHL projects at the Digital History and Philosophy of Science (Digital HPS) meeting held at Indiana University, Bloomington, September 6-7. Trish Rose-Sandler presented on The Art of Life and Daron Dierkes spoke about the George Engelmann Correspondence Project. Both projects are providing new content types to the BHL portal and help to contextualize BHL's published literature and expand its audiences.  On October 3, Alison Harding of the Natural History Museum, London presented at the 8th Meeting of European Bird Curators, held in Prague.  Her presentation, "BHL: The Vast Library of Life," provided an overview of the Biodiversity Heritage Library and showcased the tools and resources which BHL offers as a free, open access project.  On October 11, Doug Holland and Trish Rose-Sandler of the Missouri Botanical Garden delivered a presentation, "Breathing New Life into Old Date - How Opening Your Collection Can Spark Imagination and Inspire Creative Re-use," at the Missouri Libraries Association conference held in St. Louis, MO.  A week later on October 18, Jackie Chapman, Becky Morin and Bianca Crowley delivered a joint presentation for the completely virtual Library 2.013 conference, "Greasing Squeaky Wheels - A user-centered approach to collection management, technical development and resource allocation for a digital library". The presentation detailed the functionality of BHL's issue tracking system, Countersoft's Gemini product, as well as the strategy to focus on only the specific feedback received from actual users, thus maximizing the output of BHL's highly distributed and limited staff resources to resolve issues "just-in-time". 

The BHL's substantial growth and activity is supported in part by our dedicated patrons whose gifts we depend on to fund the digitization of additional literature, technical development for the program, and improvement of data curation. This November, the BHL Secretariat worked with the Smithsonian Library's Office of Advancement to craft a BHL Appeal to help foster the continued growth of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  Within the first week of the Appeal, 10 donors from 5 countries--the United States, Australia, Brazil, El Salvador, and Jamaica--contributed a total of $523.36.  We're honored by the quick response of these donors and very grateful for their generosity! 

Considering making a contribution of your own? Please visit:  https://donate.sil.si.edu/v/DonateBHL.asp