@ your library
Botany Library looks forward and back
This month, the Botany Library will relocate from its
current home in Coker Hall to join the Zoology and Chemistry libraries in
Wilson
Library (see news brief, page 5). The move will make more science collections
and services
available in one place and will promote
collaboration among the libraries.
The Botany Library has also been involved with two projects
that celebrate the history and foundations of science at the University.
Elisha Mitchell journal online
The Elisha
Mitchell Scientific Society was founded at UNC in 1883 to promote
professionalization of the sciences on campus. The society began publishing its
journal a year later to permit members to communicate their discoveries.
Seventy-eight volumes of The Journal of the Elisha Mitchell
Society are now freely available online (www.lib.unc.edu/dc/jncas), thanks to a
partnership between the University Library and the North Carolina Academy of
Science.
The journal was among the earliest scientific
publications issued in connection with a
university in the American South. Among its editors were notable scientists
Francis P.
Venable (president of the University from 1900 to 1914), William C. Coker
(chair of the botany department for 36 years) and John N. Couch (professor of
botany at UNC).
Early articles provide a window into the practice of science
at the University, including
accounts of chemical experiments, local
meteorological readings and anthropological discoveries in North Carolina.
Beginning around 1900, articles focus
predominantly on the botany and zoology of the state and region. The online
collection also includes an 1858 memoir volume in honor of Mitchell, who fell
to his death in 1857 while conducting experiments in Yancey County on the
mountain that is now named in his honor.
The North Carolina Academy of Science was founded in 1902
and used the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society as its
official publication. When the Mitchell Society dissolved in 1983, the academy
continued to publish the journal, renaming it the Journal of the North Carolina
Academy of Science in 2002.
The academy and the library intend eventually to publish the
entire run of
the publication.
Department of Biology centennial exhibit
The history of the biology department is on view in a new
exhibit in the lobby of Wilson Hall. Titled “From Organism to Molecule,” the
exhibit celebrates the department’s first century, from its founding in 1908,
when Coker
and Henry Van Peters Wilson constituted
departments of botany and zoology, respectively.
In 1982, the departments merged to form the Department of Biology, chaired by
Lawrence I. Gilbert.
“From Organism to Molecule” summarizes the organizational
history of the department and provides a glimpse of teaching methods from years
past. Artifacts include life-like models of mushrooms, a 1915 microscope used
in the botany laboratory, specimens of sponges and models of a frog and
crayfish. More recent equipment on view includes a gel electrophoresis chamber
used to separate DNA fragments and a spectrophotometer used to measure light
intensity.
“From Organism to Molecule” was created
by Biology Librarian William Burk and graduate assistant Tom Hailey, with
assistance from the North Carolina Collection Gallery in Wilson Library.
@yourlibrary highlights library services, collections, events and news of
special interest to faculty and staff. Questions about this feature and
requests for future topics may be sent to Judy Panitch, panitch@email.unc.edu.
The Web site for the University Libraries is www.lib.unc.edu.
