“A new vista to the wonders of Nature.”  This is how New York Zoological Society President Fairfield Osborn described the brand new African Plains exhibit when it opened at the Bronx Zoo 75 years ago next week, on May 1, 1941.  The exhibit—with its bringing together of several African species, including lions, zebras, nyalas, and many birds, into an expansive savannah landscape—was indeed a new vista for the Zoo.  Whereas previous Bronx Zoo exhibits were conceived around animal orders or families—what Osborn referred to as “man-made classification”—and often indoors—think of the old Lion House, the Monkey House—the African Plains brought together animals based on geography, and it placed them in a naturalistic setting. Continue reading →

Our National Digital Stewardship Resident here at the WCS Archives,  Genevieve Havemeyer-King, has another post  on the NDSR-NY Program blog:

http://ndsr.nycdigital.org/trojan-dots-and-diy-solutions/

In this post Genevieve talks about her takeaways from a recent conference and describes one of the smallest challenges we’ve faced so far—so tiny, in fact, that we nearly didn’t see it!

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At the Bronx Zoo the approach of Spring brings warmer weather, and thus increasing crowds enjoying the park.  As the season progresses the Horticulture, Maintenance, and Operations Departments, as well as various others, all find themselves increasingly busy with the work of keeping the Zoo presentable.  A century ago these departments’ predecessors also joined the fight to maintain the grounds.  During the early 20^th Century, however, Director William Hornaday, treating the efforts to keep the Zoo clean like one of his conservation campaigns, gave what he called ‘The Rubbish War’ a hyperbolic air not seen in today’s spring cleanings.

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This Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating Grace Davall, who began her career in a secretarial role at the Bronx Zoo in 1923, at the age of 18, and rose through the ranks to become Assistant Curator of Mammals and Birds in 1952.  Upon her retirement in 1970 until her death in 1985, she was designated Curator Emeritus.  Continue reading →

Continuing our series on graphic design in letterhead, this installment features stationery from zoos and aquaria in the western United States during the mid 1950s – early 1970s.   (Letterhead from the late 19th and early 20th centuries is the subject of another post!)

Which is your favorite?  (You can right-click on the images to open them in new tabs and examine them more closely.)

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Genevieve Havemeyer-King, the National Digital Stewardship Resident here at the WCS Archives,  has recently published a two-part post at the Library of Congress’s digital preservation blog, “The Signal”:

Part 1: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2016/02/blurred-lines-shapes-and-polygons-part-1-an-ndsr-ny-project-update/

Part 2: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2016/02/blurred-lines-shapes-and-polygons-part-2-an-interview-with-frank-donnelly-geospatial-data-librarian/

Genevieve’s series of blog posts documenting her time at WCS continue here with a discussion of the complexities of preserving geospatial data and an interview with Frank Donnelly, the GIS Librarian at Baruch College (CUNY).

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Why?  According to William Beebe, why was “the question which makes all science worthwhile.” Why, for instance, do tinamous of the genus Tinamus have rough skin on their lower legs while tinamous of the genus Crypturus have smooth skin?  Why do hoatzin populations seem to gather in nodes rather than being found throughout tropical forests?

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We are so pleased to announce that we have received a grant from the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials to rehouse photographic negatives dating back to the founding of the Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium.

The $16,674 grant will enable us to rehouse glass plate and film negatives that would otherwise be susceptible to damage and deterioration. The images, dating from the Bronx Zoo’s founding in 1899 through approximately 1930, will be cleaned and properly rehoused for long-term preservation. Although the entire collection requires rehousing, this project focuses on the first 12,000 negatives in the collection of more than 70,000.

Three-toed sloth at the Bronx Zoo around 1907. WCS Photo Collection

For more on the grant and additional images from the collection, please see the WCS Newsroom, and we look forward to sharing news about the project as it progresses!

Genevieve Havemeyer-King, the National Digital Stewardship Resident here at the WCS Archives,  has another post  on the NDSR-NY Program blog:

http://ndsr.nycdigital.org/in-with-the-old/

This time Genevieve describes some of the challenges of selecting born-digital materials and transferring them to the Archives for the NDSR pilot project.

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In the 20^th Century, before the internet became ubiquitous, an organization’s written correspondence was one of its primary points of contact with its partners, suppliers, and the public.  Accordingly, stationery became an important medium for graphic design.  The Wildlife Conservation Society Archives contains numerous pieces of correspondence with striking, beautiful, or amusing examples of letterhead design.

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