April 2012

Ernst Mayr Library and the Biodiversity Heritage Library

The Ernst Mayr Library is a founding member of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The BHL is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize and make accessible the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.” BHL also serves as the foundational literature component of the ...

Read more about Ernst Mayr Library and the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Welcome to the Ernst Mayr Library blog!

In 1861 Louis Agassiz purchased books from the collection of Belgian paleontologist Laurent Guillaume de Koninick and along with Agassiz's personal collection, the MCZ Library was born.  In October 1995, the library was renamed in honor of Ernst Mayr, evolutionary biologist and former director of the MCZ.  Ernst Mayr was 91 when the library was renamed, and still actively publishing and participating in lively arguments with his colleagues until shortly before his death at 100 on February 3, 2005.

For a fuller library history, see the article by Robert Young, Special...

Read more about Welcome to the Ernst Mayr Library blog!