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Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History

Originally appeared in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries Information, Spring 2007. By Leslie Overstreet

François-Nicolas Martinet. Ornithologie [Histoire des Oiseaux Peints dans Tous Leurs Aspects Apparents et Sensibles] [Ornithology], 1773-1792.

One of two rare-book rooms in the Smithsonian Libraries’ Special Collections Department, the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History is a brand new facility in the National Museum of Natural History. It allows the Libraries to merge 12 separate rare-book collections in a space convenient to researchers and appropriate for the security and preservation of the books.

Opened in 2003, the library is named in honor of Joseph F. Cullman 3rd, formerly of New York City. A long-term supporter of the Smithsonian, he and his wife Joan established two endowments for the natural history rare-book collections before their deaths in 2004: one for the operations of the Cullman Library (such as acquisitions, cataloging, and staff travel and training), and another for book preservation and conservation.

The Cullman Library holds approximately 12,000 volumes published before 1840 in the fields of botany and horticulture, zoology, paleontology, mineral and earth sciences, and anthropology. The publications of seventeenth- through nineteenth-century voyages of exploration are a special strength, as is the history of museums and scientific collecting. All collections are cataloged and searchable in the Libraries’ online catalog SIRIS.

John Gould. The Birds of New Guinea and the Adjacent Papua Islands, 1875-8.

The rare natural history collections originated with James Smithson’s own library on mineralogy at the Institution’s founding and grew over the decades through governmental transfers, international exchanges with other scientific institutions, purchases, and most particularly through gifts from curators and researchers at the National Museum of Natural History, as well as from private collectors and other benefactors. As a result, holdings are unusually deep and extensive in support of the museum’s research in taxonomy and systematics–the identification and classification of species–which provides the basis for a variety of other sciences, including medical drug research, forestry and fisheries management, and endangered-species conservation.

This technical and dry-sounding subject is belied by the glorious nature of the books themselves. From the era of the hand-press and bespoke bindings, the books are themselves historical artifacts. And inside the leather-bound volumes are beautiful hand-colored folio engravings of butterflies, shells, birds, flowers, insects, fishes, and other creatures. Striking portraits of Native Americans bring past history to life, and lush landscapes or harsh, lonely seascapes illustrate the travels of explorers and collectors in areas of the world far away in both time and place.

Curator of Natural History Rare Books Leslie Overstreet and Library Technician Daria Wingreen-Mason manage the collection, making the books available to researchers directly in the reading room and through reference assistance. In addition, the Libraries share the collection by means of digital editions and images on the Libraries’ website, in exhibitions, and featured in public programs.

For more information, visit www.sil.si.edu/libraries/cullman, or contact staff directly at 202-633-1184 or by e-mail to overstreetL@si.edu.