Life and Literature Speaker Presentations: Alain Touwaide

Today, we feature the third of our four awesome panelist from the Humanities panel at the Life and Literature conference. Enjoy Dr. Alain Touwaide's presentation on the Smithsonian Institution's digital collection on Renaissance Herbals!

Panel: Building Collaborative Networks for Science and the Humanities through Scientific Literature
Panelist: Alain Touwaide
Presentation Title: "Valeriana and the Banana Tree: Massive Digitization and the Dynamics of Publication"

Dr. Touwaide is the scientific director for the Preservation of Medical Traditions and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution. The Renaissance Herbals digital collection featured in his presentation provides digitized texts of Renaissance-era herbal books, with added value such as analysis of scientific, common, and ancient names. The next steps for the project involve linking the references in the text to digitized versions and information about type specimens. It's certainly a project after BHL's own heart!