KU News Release

KU Libraries celebrates natural history holdings in honor of Darwin’s birthday

LAWRENCE — As the world marks the 200th birthday of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin on Feb. 12, the University of Kansas Libraries is highlighting its extensive collection of holdings in the field of natural history. Spencer Research Library’s Department of Special Collections, which regularly draws the attention of national media outlets, has some of its strongest holdings in ornithology, botany and taxonomy.

In addition to holding a rare first edition of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” the Spencer Research Library supports scholarship on campus and throughout the world through the following collections:

Ellis Ornithology Collection
The Ellis collection, of great value for its cultural and aesthetic content and for its utility in scientific research, consists of 15,000 bound volumes as well as a large quantity of pamphlets, letters, original drawings, manuscripts and other miscellanea. A third of the collection is concerned wholly with ornithology, and another third of the collection is devoted to scientific expeditions, much of it rare or unique.

Of particular note is the remarkable collection of John Gould, one of the 19th century’s most notable ornithological illustrators. Spencer Research Library holds the world’s most important collection of Gould drawings and paintings, amounting to more than 2,000 sketches, annotated drawings, watercolors and lithographic stones.

The Fitzpatrick Botany Collection
With more than 8,000 volumes, the Fitzpatrick collection includes considerable holdings in early American science, particularly botany, as well as some notable European works.

The collection includes works by the English natural historians John Ray and Francis Willughby, an important collection of the works of the American biologist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque and various works by Sir Isaac Newton. In American science the most notable holdings include the work of William Darlington, Jacob Bigelow, Thomas Nuttall and Stephen Elliot.

Other rare holdings include the 1517 Hortus Sanitatis and many other 16th century editions.

The Linnaeus Collection
Spencer Research Library holds the most extensive collection of works by and about 18th century taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus in the United States.

The collection includes more than 2,000 volumes of works by Linnaeus and items of Linnaeana. Nearly all of his major works are here in many editions, of which a hundred or more are first editions.

Particularly notable are the various editions of the Systema Naturae, including the extremely rare first edition (1735), a complete set of the Linnaean dissertations in their first editions and the scarce first edition of Pehr Kalm’s En Resa till Norra America (Stockholm, 1753-1761).

In addition to these holdings, the University Archives, housed in Spencer Research Library, include the personal papers of notable researchers in the fields of entomology, zoology, geology, biology and ornithology. The Lewis Lindsay Dyche collection, for whom Dyche Hall is named, is comprised of diaries, correspondence, photographs and more than 5,000 lantern slides that he used in teaching and public lectures.

The Kenneth Spencer Research Library is open to the public. The library’s hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

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