In a mad search for a pdf version of Standley and Steyermark's landmark Flora of Guatemala, I stumbled upon an amazing website and resource.
Biodiversity Library
As I posted a few weeks back, I am a strong supporter of sites that help to disseminate scholarly texts. Well, this site has an amazing source of classic, old-school texts on the world's biological diversity. Many, if not all of these, I imagine are not subject to copyright (so no legal worries). The books can be read online or downloaded (and I spent several hours downloading several Floras for my lab's computer). Many of these texts are historic artifacts themselves and, in fact, are primary sources on 19th and early 20th century scientific colonialism. Not all the texts are about plants and animals exclusively, however. I downloaded some early versions of Sahagun's and Acosta's histories, for example. My only critique is that I wish more was available, especially some of the Harvard Peabody Museum monographs in archaeology. This site is probably old news, and most scholars who use this stuff likely already know about it. But it is new to me....
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