Biodiversity Heritage Library on Pinterest
The open-access library of natural history literature shares images from its books: frontispieces, bindings, animals, plants and scientific art.
What it is
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is an open-access online library of biodiversity literature: old books and journals about plants, animals and the natural world, free to read. On Pinterest it runs 38 boards with about 5,000 pins and roughly 7,600 followers.
It's all in English, but mostly it's pictures.
Why we picked it
Plenty of people know BHL as a vast archive of scans, but finding the beautiful bits there takes effort. Pinterest does that for you. Fancy Frontispieces collects the engravings that faced a book's title page. Fancy Book Binding shows off lavish covers. There's a set of coloring pages made from old illustrations that you can download and color yourself, and a delightfully odd board about tongues in scientific illustrations.
Don't skip BHL on Instagram, with more than 600 pins of scientific art the library has shared on social media: birds, snakes, fish, skulls, flowers.
Where to start
- Open Fancy Frontispieces for the most elaborate opening pages in science books.
- Browse Fancy Book Binding for covers that make you want to visit a library.
- Scroll BHL on Instagram for a long stream of natural history illustration.
- Download something from BHL Coloring Pages if you fancy coloring an old engraving.
- Peek at Baby Animals in BHL! for young creatures from old books.
Who it's for
Nature lovers and amateur naturalists, illustrators, biology teachers, parents after unusual coloring pages and anyone who loves old books with pictures.
Quick answers
What is BHL? An open-access online library of biodiversity literature, free for anyone to use.
What's on the profile? Thirty-eight boards covering frontispieces, bindings, scientific art, coloring pages and nature photos.
Can I download the coloring pages? Yes, the BHL Coloring Pages board explicitly invites you to download and color them.
