Archives

Archives relevant to the history of ornithology comprise the personal field notes, correspondence, photographs and manuscripts of ornithologists, as well as specimen collections (largely housed in museums), and the correspondence and official documents of ornithological societies and clubs. The list below summarizes the contents of some ornithological archives and provides links to them or the relevant contact person.

• AOU archives: the archives of the American Ornithologists’ Union from 1883-2015 are housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. The link will take you to the searchable database at the Smithsonian site.
• COS archives: the archives of the Cooper Ornithological Society from 1874-1967 are housed at the following four locations. Links will take you to further information.
  • Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (1874-1994)
  • California Academy of Sciences (1895-1967)
  • University of California Los Angeles (1895-1935)
  • Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (1913-1930)
• People:
  • Vero C. Wynne-Edwards: notes, manuscripts, correspondence and photographs housed at the Queen’s University Archives in Kingston, Ontario; his books are in the Jeannie and Vero Wynne-Edwards Collection also at Queen’s University
  • David Lack: notes, correspondence, manuscripts archived at the Alexander Library of Ornithology at Oxford University
  • Joseph Grinnell: archives at the Smithsonian as well as at the MVZ at UC Berkeley
  • Ernst Mayr: at the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard
• Other ornithological societies, organisations, and clubs
  • British Trust for Ornithology:

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IMAGE: The National Archives UK (The National Archives UK) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons