Have a safe and warm winter break, Illini! Here are Funk ACES's hours during the break.

Since Jan 1st I've been celebrating the start Biodiversity Heritage Library's (@biodivlibrary.bsky.social) new era by adding structured data to their images in #WikiCommons. #BHLTransition

💚 Thanks to our global BHL community, we reached our USD 50,000 #GiveBHLWings goal by 1 Jan 2026! These funds support BHL’s transition, staff, and infrastructure, keeping biodiversity knowledge open worldwide. Special thanks to our recurring donors. More updates soon. 🌍 📖 🧪 #BHLTransition

“‘Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’” #AChristmasCarol- Charles #Dickens

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

There are a couple weeks left to this campaign! Thank you all for your generous support!

This new strategic partnership will help build redundancy and support for technical expertise in the BHL in addition to their contribution of amazing collections! We are so excited to welcome this new partner. 💚💛

🌍 Almost USD 35,000 raised — from supporters in 35 countries! 🌏 Your global support is helping #GiveBHLWings as BHL prepares for independence on 1 Jan 2026. #BHLTransition 🌱 📖 Let’s keep biodiversity knowledge open & accessible worldwide. 💚 Donate: ancrywkv.donorsupport.co/page/GiveBHL... 🧪

📻 Come see our exhibit on farm radio history! 📻 The display highlights historic stations, persons, and practices, and it features newspapers, books, and physical audio-visual media, including CDs, cassettes, and film. It's located on the second floor of the Funk ACES Library!

On 1 January 2026, the Biodiversity Heritage Library will take flight, becoming fully independent after nearly two decades hosted by the Smithsonian Institution. Learn more on the #BHLBlog: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/12/give... #GiveBHLWings #BHLTransition #GivingTuesday

Consider BHL in your #GivingTuesday plans! @biodivlibrary.bsky.social democratizes science by making centuries of biodiversity literature and the data therein available to anyone, anywhere, for free.

🌿 It’s #GivingTuesday! Help the Biodiversity Heritage Library take flight as we count down to independence on 1 Jan 2026. Your gift helps #GiveBHLWings – keeping 500 years of biodiversity knowledge open & accessible worldwide. #ILoveBHL 🧪 📖 🌏 💚 Donate now:

📘 Read the announcement in the latest issue of Inoculum @msafungi.bsky.social: Mycotaxon: Announcing All Issues of Mycotaxon Have Been Digitized and are Available in BHL by Jason Karakehian, Diane Rielinger & Don Pfister. @harvard.edu @harvardlibrary.bsky.social msafungi.org/inoculum/

Find joy where you can. Happy Halloween!! 🍪 @illinoisfunk.bsky.social

Learn more about how exhibition data makes its way into the Wikiverse in this excellent presentation by @siobhanleachman.bsky.social #LivingData2025 🧪

Fewer grad students means less science, but many STEM PhD programs in the US are cutting back on admissions this year due to federal funding uncertainties. Words by me for @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41... @emsque.bsky.social @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social @julieposselt.bsky.social 🧪

In recognition of #ReptileAwarenessDay, here's a Frilled-neck Lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii) from Erpétologie Générale, Vol. 3 Atlas (1854). Contributed to BHL by Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31895846 #SciArt #ILoveBHL 🌱 📖 🧪 🦎

Happy #WorldEarthwormDay! 🪱 To celebrate, here is a beautiful plate of an Earthworm (& friends) from "Natural history of the animal kingdom for the use of young people" (1889) digitised for BHL by Smithsonian Libraries & Archives www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28687600. #ILoveBHL 🧪 📖 🪱

It's #WombatDay! The Wombat was first described in 1800 as "the largest of all the Opossums: size of a Badger: colour pale yellow: fur longish and sub-erect: nose strongly divided by a furrow" www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/19632636. (#SciArt 1798: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/25448864) 🧪 📖 🌏

It’s International #OpenAccess week! @biodivlibrary.bsky.social provides open access to biodiversity literature, democratizing access to scientific information! BHL does *not* require a login and you can freely read or download content. #ILoveBHL www.biodiversity.org.

📢 Check out all the BHL presentations at #LivingData2025! Day #2 has an entire session dedicated to Wikimedia and Biodiversity Data, chaired by BHL's fabulous #WikimedianInResidence @tiagolubiana.bsky.social. Details: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:L... #DatosVivos2025 @wikidatacommunity.bsky.social

2/3 of biodiversity data is from birds!! No love for soils— but let’s change that 🤩 #LivingData2025

BHL Superuser & Wikimedian extraordinaire @siobhanleachman.bsky.social will share how to extract, add, and enrich biodiversity data from BHL in #Wikidata to empower enrichment and reuse. 📖 👩‍💻 🔗 🦋 #LivingData #DatosVivos2025 #ILoveBHL

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” Thomas Paine #nokings

Please consider making a donation to @biodivlibrary.bsky.social today! If you have the capacity, consider a legacy gift, contact me for more information. #ILoveBHL

This article captures the critical need for deliberate, coordinated support of scientific databases such as #BHL @biodivlibrary.bsky.social. Scientific information must be recognized as core infrastructure, not a peripheral project. 🧪 Article: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It's Bat Appreciation Month! To celebrate, I'm gonna try to share a bat a day. I'm three days late, but better late than never. Plus, I appreciate bats 24/7, 365. First up, here's a great image of bats from the Biodiversity Heritage Library which is currently directed by @treiceratops.bsky.social!

This is an excellent offer for anybody waffling! about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup... #ILoveBHL

📢 Big news! BHL has a new fiscal sponsor – @clirnews.bsky.social 🎉 This marks a major step forward in BHL’s transition to a more sustainable, community-led future. 🌍 Read all about what this means for BHL: 🔗 blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/08/tran... #ILoveBHL

New on the #BHLblog: "Seeds for the Future" by @tiagolubiana.bsky.social. Tiago has done incredible work connecting BHL with the #Wikimedia ecosystem – building tools, enriching metadata & dramatically increasing the visibility of BHL’s image collections: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/07/seed...

Clocked! Jinkx knows what time it is! ⏰

After we upload historic journals onto BHL, we gather & upload the data for the articles in each volume. This can be time consuming, but it's critical to article discoverability (& to our retrospective assignment of DOIs). We've surfaced 419,456 articles thus far! Many thx to @rdmpage.bsky.social.

In 1758 Carl Linnaeus gave the world's largest cat its 1st scientific name: Felis tigris (he used the genus Felis for all cats). In 1929, Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the tiger under the genus Panthera. #GlobalTigerDay #InternationalTigerDay www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/726936

The #BHLTransition is underway! ⛵ We’re charting the course to a strong and sustainable future for the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Read our latest update and, if you have visionary ideas about how BHL can evolve and grow, get in touch 🚀: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/07/tran...

In the latest BHL blog post, Technical Coordinator Joel Richard provides insight into recent challenges related to bot traffic and the steps being taken to address them, highlighting a growing challenge for cultural heritage sites. 🧪

If something feels off about someone - in your gut, your body or your intuition, step back, no matter how much you care about them, no matter what they say, no matter what you want or hope for. Press the pause button. Step back. Listen inside.

Thank you @trevorabranch.bsky.social thanks for the shout out!! I and @nicolekearney.bsky.social are ready and able to have these conversations! 🧪

Happy #WorldMeerkatDay! This special day was founded by Australia's Taronga Western Plains Zoo on July 3, 2018. It is now celebrated across the globe! www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31064692

This single effort has made it easier to find and download biology articles and books from the 1700s and 1800s than from the 1900s... (many of the latter are still under copyright)

The animal kingdom, arranged according to its organization, serving as a foundation for the natural history of animals: London: G. Henderson, 1834-1837. (source: http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28028027) #nature #illustration #art

🐯 It's #InternationalTigerDay 🐅, a day to celebrate tigers & raise awareness for tiger conservation. Carl Linnaeus gave the tiger its first scientific name in 1758: Felis tigris (now called Panthera tigris). Systema Naturae, v.1: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/726936 #ILoveBHL

BHL has been experiencing a significant increase in traffic. Users may be experiencing intermittent service disruptions. If you're downloading data & don't want to put additional pressure on BHL systems, here's how to do that: about.biodiversitylibrary.org/ufaqs/how-do... Thank you!

the destruction of chattel slavery is one of the great accomplishments in our nation's history and the reason conservatives hate celebrating it is because doing so legitimizes the black counter-narrative of the united states

For Black folks music has always been part of our fight for liberation. From communication to channeling joy, strength and comfort. For Day 19 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, in honor of Lift Every Voice being our anthem *before* the US had an official anthem, share YOUR Black National Anthem.

Please feel free to contact me via the email in the call [email protected] OR on Bluesky, I am happy to set up a conversation! 🧪 -Kelli

Today at the Funk Library we are hosting #graphicscience book club with 5th-8th graders participating in #PollenPower at the Institute for Genomic Biology at #UIUC! Reading: Cicadapocalypse by Roger McMullan 🧪 📖 @illinoisfunk.bsky.social

As #NationalVolunteerWeek draws to a close, we thank our fabulous #BHLAustralia volunteers for their incredible work, dedication & passion. They have given 1000s of hours of their time to making biodiversity knowledge freely accessible online. Many have been with us day one (in 2011!) 🙏 🌱 📖 🧪

🆕 Over 16,000 #biodiversity articles from across the #journals we publish on our #ARPHA #publishing #platform are now discoverable & accessible in the @biodivlibrary.bsky.social! 👍 Future papers will be added upon publication. ℹ️ Read more on our blog: blog.pensoft.net/2025/05/20/p....

🦀 Spider decorator crabs (C. retusa) stick bits of sea life & debris onto the spiny hairs on their legs, making them difficult to spot. #SciArt via "Dictionnaire Classique des Sciences Naturelles" Atlas (1853) in #BHLib via @cornelluniversity.bsky.social ➡️ www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42266333