The Biodiversity Heritage Library : advancing metadata practices in a collaborative digital library

Author Posting. © Taylor & Francis, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of Taylor & Francis for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Library Metadata 10 (2010): 136-155, doi:10.1080/19386389.2010.506400.The Biodiversity Heritage Library is an open access digital library of taxonomic literature, forming a single point of access to this collection for use by a worldwide audience of professional taxonomists, as well as “citizen scientists.” A successful mass-scanning digitization program, one that creates functional and findable digital objects, requires thoughtful metadata work flow that parallels the work flow of the physical items from shelf to scanner. This article examines the needs of users of taxonomic literature, specifically in relation to the transformation of traditional library material to digital form. It details the issues that arise in determining scanning priorities, avoiding duplication of scanning across the founding 12 natural history and botanical garden library collections, and the problems related to the complexity of serials, monographs, and series. Highlighted are the tools, procedures, and methodology for addressing the details of a mass-scanning operation. Specifically, keeping a steady flow of material, creation of page level metadata, and building services on top of data and metadata that meet the needs of the targeted communities. The replication of the BHL model across a number of related projects in China, Brazil, and Australia are documented as evidence of the success of the BHL mass-scanning project plan

Female Empowerment in Magical Realism: The Marvelous, the Magical, and the Mythic

Magical realism is a literary style that features supernatural or magical elements as an aspect of an everyday, realistic setting. The use of magical realism often reveals political problems and social concerns that are concealed in the world of power. This thesis examines elements of magical realism in Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus, and Linda Hogan’s Power. Though the cultures in which the works were produced differ from one another, the writers employ the style of magical realism as an approach of writing against aspects of the dominant culture, such as a military dictatorship, a patriarchal social system, and the contemporary, capitalist society of America encroaching on a Native American community. Through analyzing passages from each novel that which represent instances of the supernatural within the text, this thesis seeks to demonstrate the agency that magical realism provides for these female characters of Clara, Blanca, and Alba in The House of the Spirits, Sophie Fevvers in Nights at the Circus, and Omishto in Power. The thesis examines the novels from a feminist critical lens and examines the representation of women in the texts. The presence of the magical/mythic acts as an alternative world, an escape from oppression, and also as a means of empowerment against the oppression. This study works to understand the unique ability of magical realist texts to allow for imagining a supernatural world within the conventional and the ability of magical realist writers to speak for those who cannot

Desafios da energia no Brasil: panorama regulatório da produção e comercialização do biodiesel

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar os aspectos jurídicos do panorama regulatório da produção e comercialização do biodiesel no Brasil, no contexto internacional de crescente demanda energética, onde os biocombustíveis surgem como uma alternativa renovável aos combustíveis fósseis. A metodologia empregada neste trabalho é de cunho qualitativo, com análise bibliográfica e documental da legislação brasileira e internacional. A conclusão a que se chega é que os biocombustíveis apresentam grande potencial para se tornarem uma importante fonte sustentável de energia para o País, além da possibilidade de contribuírem para a melhoria do seu quadro social, através do desenvolvimento de programas de governo que contemplam a sua produção pelos agricultores familiares. A contribuição deste trabalho decorre da constatação de que a Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis (ANP), órgão regulador das atividades relacionadas ao biodiesel no Brasil, tem seu foco nos aspectos econômicos como fundamento à sua atividade interventiva, especialmente na proteção ao consumidor. Excluída das atribuições da agência reguladora, a efetiva concretização da expressiva dimensão social ligada ao biodiesel, entretanto, carece de ações governamentais no sentido de implementar políticas de planejamento agrícola adequadas a cada região do país, conferindo suporte ao sistema cooperativo, bem como apoio técnico-financeiro ao agricultor familiar, a fim de elevá-lo a partícipe-chave neste contexto