The oldest Mexican cookbook in the University of Texas at San Antonio’s (UTSA) collection was never meant for public consumption. Handwritten in 1789 by Doña Ignacita, a woman who probably served as the kitchen manager for a well-to-do family, the manuscript includes recipes for such specialties as “hidden vegetable stew,” or potaje escondido, and an orange-hued soup called zopa de naranja. Per Atlas Obscura, the university’s cookbook collection—totaling more than 2,000 volumes, including the 100 manuscripts never intended for public use—traces its origins to San Antonio resident Laurie Gruenbeck’s 2001 donation of nearly 550 cookbooks. Gruenbeck amassed her collection, including Doña Ignacita’s handwritten recipes, during the decades she spent traveling through Mexico.

You Can Now Download 150,000 Free Illustrations of the Natural World

The artworks, collected by the open-access Biodiversity Heritage Library, range from animal sketches to historical diagrams and botanical studies.

Botanical illustrations offer mesmerizingly detailed and vividly colored glimpses of the natural world. Now, reports Hakim Bishara for Hyperallergic, more than 150,000 such artworks are freely available for download via the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), an open-access digital archive that preserves images and documents related to botany, wildlife and biodiversity.

Captured in watercolor paintings, lithograph prints and black-ink linework, the collected illustrations demonstrate the diversity of Earth’s wildlife as observed over hundreds of years. The BHL’s earliest texts date to the mid-1400s; its digital collection includes illustrations as recently created as the early 1900s.

The practice of creating detailed illustrations of flora and fauna, whether to document an expedition or a medical practice, gained popularity well before photography was up to the task. Even today, an illustration can offer more clarity than a photograph.

Founded in 2006 by a consortium of natural history libraries, among them the Smithsonian Libraries, the BHL launched its online portal the following year. Then 300 titles strong, the database has since grown to more than 200,000 volumes, 150,000 illustrations and information on some 150 million species. Per Hyperallergic, selections range from animal sketches to historical diagrams and botanical studies.

Open Library - Together, let's build an Open Library for the World

One Hundred Museums Transformed Their Collections Into Free Coloring Pages

This year’s #ColorOurCollections campaign features everything from medical drawings to zany 1920s advertisements for butter.

Classics are called classics for a reason. For the most part, these cherished bits of historical art are preserved unaltered: Museums, libraries and academic institutions don’t typically take kindly to patrons scribbling on their collections.

But with the annual #ColorOurCollections social media campaign, the world’s art enthusiasts can come pretty darn close. This week, the popular initiative—first launched by the New York Academy of Medicine Library (NYAM) in 2016—invites viewers to download, color and reimagine thousands of black-and-white artworks sourced from dozens of cultural mainstays around the world. Currently at 101 strong, the list may continue to grow and is already encroaching on last year’s roster of 114 participants.

Among the institutions advertising their contributions are representatives from the academic world, including Harvard University’s Countway Library and the University of Waterloo, as well as museums like Les Champs Libres and the Huntington Library. The only commonality shared by the thousands of prints and drawings available on the NYAM website is their black-and-white appearance: The pages otherwise span just about every taste and illustrative predilection a coloring connoisseur could conjure.

Internet Archive

Check out books, audio, software and watch full-length feature films, classic shorts, world culture documentaries, World War II propaganda, movie trailers, and films created in just ten hours: These options are all featured in this diverse library! Many of these videos are available for free download.