The first volume of the Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land appeared in 1849, beginning a tradition of scientific and cultural publishing that continues today.
In our latest BHL 20th Anniversary Series blog post, Dr Sally Bryant AM explores the remarkable details preserved across more than 175 years of the journal, from giant blue gums and unusual specimens and thylacines sent to London, to introduced sugar gliders and trout, the growth of Tasmania’s scientific institutions, and more recent work towards truth-telling and historical accountability.
These volumes preserve an invaluable record of Tasmania’s changing environments, cultures and politics, but they also reflect the privilege, omissions and European perspectives of the colonial society that produced them.
Read Not Just Words on a Page: Tasmania’s History in the Papers and Proceedings.
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Coincidentally @bhl_nicole this is one of the journals I’ve been adding articles to over the last couple of weeks. I am currently juggling a frighteningly large backlog of journals needing articles extracted and being a first time grandfather, so progress is sometimes slow. There are several articles in BHL related to the apology to the Aboriginal community mentioned in the blog post, see https://biostor.org/issn/0080-4703/year/2021.
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That’s great to hear @rdmpage . The Editor is really keen for the article and DOI work to be finished for the Papers and Proceedings. We were assigning DOIs for the recent articles, but I have not had the capacity to work on this over the past year with the transition and communications work. If I could bump it up your list, that would be amazing (behind the Grandfather duties, obviously). 
My goal (as time permits) is to add all the articles with CrossRef metadata to BHL. Turns out this is not always straightforward as that metadata is - cough - variable in quality. But it is in my ever fickle searchlight for the moment 
P.S. @bhl_nicole really enjoying the diverse range of “20 years” topics that you are shepherding onto the BHL blog.
I really appreciate you doing this. I’m aware this title is a little complex. If there are any articles that are DOI ready, please let me know and I’ll do that end of the work. And, I still have volunteers begging for article work if they can help in some way.
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Lovely to hear. It’s been a very enjoyable part of the job. I’ve particularly enjoyed having so many new authors share their stories on the BHL blog, and of course the regular contributors back, such as your esteemed self!
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Congratulations on being a first time grandfather!
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