Crocodiles hanging from the ceiling
Arsenic soap for warding off insects
'Get-rich-quick' schemes for collectors of scientific specimens
These are all part of the fascinating and complex story behind the growth of natural history museums, a tale told in the new Smithsonian Libraries exhibition, Wonder Bound: Rare Books on Early Museums.
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries' collection of rare natural-history books is vital to museum-based research in taxonomy, systematics, bio-diversity, species distributions and extinctions, and other issues of current interest. They also document the development of natural-history museums over the course of four centuries. Curated by Leslie Overstreet, Smithsonian Libraries' Curator of Natural History Rare Books, Wonder Bound includes illustrations of Renaissance-era "cabinets of curiosities," also known as "Wunderkammern" (wonder-rooms), as well as 18th and 19th century publications containing specific instructions for collecting and documenting specimens. Such pamphlets were given to adventurers, merchants, and sailors in hopes of their returning with new specimens and materials for museum collections. Yet other books trace the development of preservation techniques for battling the bug infestations that destroyed many early collections. The historical survey continues into the present day, with illustrations of curators from the Smithsonian's own National Museum of Natural History engaged in similar collecting and preservation activities.
Wonder Bound will be on display from May 24, 2002 through November 2002 in the Constitution Avenue Lobby (west end) of the National Museum of Natural History.
Enjoy a digital version of the exhibition by pointing your browser to:
www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/wonderbound
Please contact Savannah Schroll at 357-2240 for further information.
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