We are very pleased to report that we have received a Preservation Assistant Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities! This grant will support a general preservation assessment of the WCS Archives film collection, which contains approximately 2,200 film prints created by WCS zoo, aquarium, and field conservation staff over the twentieth century. A preservation consultant will conduct a formal assessment of the film collection and its storage environment in order to inform the Archives’ goals of creating a sustainable preservation plan for the collection and making it accessible.The assessment will support the Archives’ future ability to budget and plan for the collection’s rehousing and stabilization and determine options for the collection’s future accessibility.

We look forward to keeping you updated as the assessment gets underway this year!

For more on the NEH’s recent awards announcement, see here.

We are delighted to report that the WCS Archives has been awarded $60,237 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to process 13 important collections from the Archives. Among these are New York Zoological Society (NYZS) President Fairfield Osborn records and World’s Fair records, 1935-1967; Bronx Zoo General Curator Lee S. Crandall records, 1903-1969; NYZS Conservation Department records, circa 1969-1979; and NYZS Education Department records, circa 1967 to 1982.

In short, this project’s goal is to provide access to unprocessed and unexposed collections that document the mid-twentieth-century American environmental and wildlife conservation movements; reveal the evolution of exhibit design and animal care in zoos and aquariums; and provide exceptional glimpses into both zoo- and conservation-based activities in the United States. Together these collections cover pivotal events in the history of WCS that also represent important moments and trends in the cultural and scientific histories of New York City, the US, and the world.

The project will run from June 2016 to June 2017, and we look forward to sharing news and finds with you as the project progresses!

This post was written by Kimio Honda,  Studio Manager in WCS’s Exhibition and Graphic Arts Department. This is part 2 of 2 posts on eagle sculptures at the Bronx Zoo and beyond.

Beyond the eagles I described in my previous post, there are a few other, though less visible, eagle sculptures at the Bronx Zoo. These belonged to the building behind the current Birds of Prey exhibit that was originally known as the Winter House for Eagles, built in 1912. (You can see original plans for the building on the NYC Design Flickr page.) Curator of Birds William Beebe took the building as a research space as early as 1914, and it later served as the headquarters for his Department of Tropical Research. The Beebe Lab, as it was known, later became the office for the Publications Department, and house now Digital Programs and Media Production.  Continue reading →

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

http://ndsr.nycdigital.org/amia-2015-some-highlights-takeaways

This one focuses on her experience at the Association of Moving Image Archivists’ 2015 annual conference.  As Genevieve notes, of particular interest to WCS’s mission–and our NDSR project–“was Linda Tadic’s (Digital Bedrock) talk on the environmental impact of digital preservation.”

Check it out!

This post was written by Kimio Honda,  Studio Manager in WCS’s Exhibition and Graphic Arts Department. This is part 1 of 2 posts on eagle sculptures at the Bronx Zoo and beyond.

Lions and eagles, as kings of beasts and birds, may be among the most common subjects of sculptures in public spaces. It is no surprise then that we find several eagle sculptures at the Bronx Zoo. Let’s take a look at them, starting with the oldest one.

Continue reading →

Theodore Roosevelt, who was born 157 years ago today, provided WCS with the gifts of great moral and political support in the organization’s early years.  It was Roosevelt who appointed the committee of Boone and Crockett Club members who eventually founded the New York Zoological Society.  Roosevelt also endorsed the formation of the American Bison Society and served as its first honorary president.  And he spoke out in support of Bronx Zoo Director William T. Hornaday’s (in the end unsuccessful) 1915 campaign to increase wildlife sanctuaries in national forests.  Continue reading →

Graphical renderings of the “Ocean Wonders” exhibit and features at the NY Aquarium. Image courtesy of Naomi Pearson, EGAD at WCS.

WCS’s National Digital Stewardship Resident, Genevieve Havemeyer-King, has written a post about our digital archives pilot project on the NDSR-NY Program blog:

http://ndsr.nycdigital.org/the-digital-ecosystem-at-the-wildlife-conservation-society/

In the post she “introduce[s] a few complex and exciting digital preservation challenges [she’s] encountered in each department” that she is surveying for the project.

Check it out!

For most of the past year I have been processing historical records from our Ornithology Department, particularly materials from former Curators Joe Bell, Don Bruning, and Christine Sheppard.  These records provide detailed evidence of the Curators’ oversight of bird husbandry and exhibits at the Bronx Zoo, professional leadership in what was then called the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, and commitment to field conservation worldwide.  For the most part, however, this evidence only becomes truly impressive in aggregate: Rather than individual documents providing ‘A-ha!’ moments, it is the very depth and volume of material that gives the collections their historical weight.

Continue reading →

 We’re pleased to report that more of our materials are now available online–specifically some fun Bronx Zoo and New York Aquarium ephemera from our Publications and Printed Ephemera collection.  Thanks to the excellent Culture in Transit Program, we now have 112 additional items up at METRO’s Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York site.  This is a fraction of this large and always growing collection, and we hope to add more in the coming years.  Continue reading →

Throughout the Bronx Zoo’s history, it has been common to receive letters from people wanting to donate animals.  However, in 1901, the Zoo received a letter from a not-so-common person:  Continue reading →