By Carolyn Sheffield, Project Manager
Book Project is pleased to announce that page scans for over 200 of the
cataloged Smithsonian field books are now available online through the
Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?tag.cstype=all&q=unit_code%3AFBR&fq=online_media_type:%22Electronic+resource%22. Additionally, over 300 new
records have been added since the field book records were launched in
Although the project started out as a cataloging initiative in 2010, we recognized early on the need for not just remote access to the catalog records but also to the rich and varied content found in field books. Starting with a grant from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, and continuing with the ongoing efforts of the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ Digital Services, we are thrilled to begin seeing this goal realized.
The page scans that are now online provide great representation of the variety of topics and formats that field books can take. For starters, there are numerous ship logs from the Albatross documenting voyages in the 19th and 20th centuries. Built in 1882, the Albatross was one of the first large vessels designed specifically for marine research. The Albatross logbooks contain a wealth of information, not just about species, but about weather and other environmental conditions at the time. As demonstrated by projects like OldWeather, ship log data can be extremely useful for understanding historic climate patterns and helping scientists model projections. If you dig old ships and marine biodiversity, check out our earlier post on the Albatross collection: http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2012/10/new-uses-for-old-books.html.
Some of the other field books now online provide a look into terrestrial research. From herpetologist James A. Peters, you can get a sense of what it was like to conduct field work in Mexico in 1949 and read detailed descriptions of some of the specimens he saw. Peters' Field Notes: Mexico, 1949 also includes a bit of an unexpected treat--a sketch of a horse and buggy can be found inserted between his pages of notes.
Harrison G. Dyar’s field books, or “blue books”, are some of my personal favorites and several of these are also now available. These include detailed notes on his daily observations and frequently include sketches. Dyar was a renowned entomologist whose personal life is perhaps as well remembered as his professional life. He served as honorary curator of Lepidoptera at the Smithsonian and as a mosquito specialist for the USDA. He is perhaps best known for his peculiar habit of digging elaborate tunnels under his two homes in Washington D.C.
To view all of these and more, visit http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?tag.cstype=all&q=unit_code%3AFBR&fq=online_media_type:%22Electronic+resource%22. To repeat our search strategy, you can also start from http://collections.si.edu, type unit_code:FBR in the search box and then use the Online Media facet to limit your search to records with electronic resources. Enjoy!