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Museum of Comparative Zoology--Archives
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http://library.mcz.harvard.edu/wp/?page_id=64 |
| Hours: | Mon.-Fri., 9:30-12:30, 2-4:30 |
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| Address: | Museum of Comparative Zoology--Archives Ernst Mayr Library, Special Collections 26 Oxford Street Cambridge MA 02138 | ||||||
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| Extent of Collections: | 415 ft. | ||||||
| Dates: | 1810 to present, chiefly 1859-1940 | ||||||
| Holdings Description: | Primarily 19th- and 20th-century zoology. Museum directors' papers, 1859-1927, of Louis Agassiz, Alexander Agassiz, and Samuel Henshaw. (Later directors' papers are at the University Archives.) Papers of ornithologist and curator William Brewster. Some manuscripts of Thomas Say, Alexander Wilson, John Abbot. Departmental records: curatorial correspondence, collection, accession, storage, exchange, loan, publication. Field notes, journals, photographs, lantern slides, drawings and illustration proofs, scrapbooks, some memorabilia and teaching aids. Personal and professional papers concerning the history of American science: expeditions, invertebrate and vertebrate zoology, entomology, herpetology, ornithology, ichthyology, paleontology, oceanography, associations, natural history museums. Portrait collection of naturalists from Aristotle to the present. | ||||||
| History: | A large portion of the material now organized as the museum archives first came to the library in February 1946, following the death of director Thomas Barbour; until that time, the papers had been considered an adjunct to the director's files. In sixteen file cabinets, the historical material was filed alphabetically according to writer, with only a name catalog.
Cataloging and description of the manuscripts began in 1971. Because the files were arranged alphabetically, with no indication of provenance,original arrangement, nor date of acquisition, an alphabetical organization based on the Houghton Library system was chosen. Five series were created from the undifferentiated collection: Agassiz papers, museum papers, William Brewster papers, miscellaneous manuscripts, and objets d'art. The cataloging of the museum series was completed in 1975. Accessions from museum departments have either been incorporated into existing series or used to establish new groups or series; in 1978 the archives, consisting of 19th- and 20th-century materials, became part of Special Collections. Several grants for preservation have been obtained, the largest being from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in 1977 for the preservation microfilming of the Agassiz letterbooks. In 2007, a Library Digital Initiative project, "Jacques Burkhardt and the Thayer Expedition to Brazil (1865-1866)," was completed, providing online access to the Ernst Mayr Library's collection of Burkhardt watercolors and pencil drawings as well as other Thayer Expedition papers. | ||||||
| Printed Guides & Catalogs: | MCZ Archives card catalog ; shelf lists for several ARC series ; Bernhard Kummel Papers finding aid and register. | ||||||
| Online Guides & Catalogs: | Collection-level records in HOLLIS; holdings accessioned after 1990 cataloged in HOLLIS; Jacques Burkhardt watercolors and pencil drawings cataloged and digitized in the TED database and VIA (see Library's web site). | ||||||
| Contact for permission to publish requests: | Special Collections Assistant, Dana Fisher | ||||||
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