British Museum (Natural History): Department of Zoology: Zoology Library: Accession...

This series consists of a complete record of purchases 1888-1972 and donations 1880-1972 to the Zoology Library, with indexes before 1907. It also contains an earlier Accessions Register and other volumes also recording the movement of monographs, serials, maps and drawings into and out of the library.

Series held at The Natural History Museum are catalogued more fully in its online catalogue (reference DF ZOO/270). Online descriptions of some individual records can also be viewed on Discovery, see DF 270.

The records are arranged by record type and then chronologically.

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When Zoology was formed as a branch of the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiousities at the British Museum in 1836, it was dependent on the main British Museum library for natural history books. Over the next few decades, dissatisfaction with the main library grew as the Zoology collections grew, and consequently the Zoology branch (Department from 1856) started to build up its own small collection of books. The roots of the Zoology Library appear to go back to 1842, when the first entry was made in a Zoology Accessions Register. In 1847 Zoology was first awarded an annual grant to buy books, and this is reflected in the increase of entries in the Accessions Register from this date. Early manuscript catalogues were compiled as temporary guides, to prevent duplicate books and periodicals being purchased.

When the Natural History departments moved to South Kensington in the early 1880s, access to the main British Museum library was lost. A General Library was set up for books relating to more than one department, and large grants were made to Zoology and the other departments in this period to buy books, periodicals, maps and drawings relating specifically to their own field. In Zoology this is reflected in the correspondence of the time, in the beginning of the series of purchase books, and in the three editions of a printed catalogue in 1880, 1882 and 1884. These record that in 1880, the Zoology library had 1872 volumes; by 1884 this had risen to 5309. The Zoology Library was based in the South West corridor at this time, under John Saunders who was called 'the first Zoology Librarian' by F C Sawyer in his Reminiscences. Exactly when Saunders was appointed to this post is unclear, but the staff lists show he first came to the museum in 1847, and in 1886 was first awarded an annual allowance 'for services in the library of the department'.

The library had grown to about 17,000 volumes by 1900 when Saunders retired. The new Zoology Librarian was H W England. In 1909, the Zoology Library was moved to the west side of the main hall, into the old Fish Reserve Gallery. Although in 1913 the Insect Section became the separate Entomology Department, the Insect Library remained under Zoology's control until 1936. In 1937, when the library possessed some 45,000 volumes, England died and his assistant F C Sawyer took over. During the Second World War, the Zoology books were moved to the Zoology Museum at Tring and to Brougham Castle in Banbury for safekeeping. Sawyer was absent from 1941 in the Admiralty, and his assistant W H Mabbott was effectively in charge during this period. Both Sawyer and the books returned to the Museum in 1946, and in the same year the General Library took over centralised control of some of the departmental libraries functions, such as cataloguing, purchases and binding. The departmental libraries however remained under the authority of the Keeper of their department.

In 1966 Sawyer retired from his post (although he carried on working in the libraries for some time afterwards) and G D R Bridson became the fourth Zoology Librarian. Bridson compiled a Guide to the Library before he left in 1969, which shows there were then 58,000 volumes (of which 15,000 were kept in one of the 23 Sections rather than in the central Zoology library). In 1969 Ann Lucas (later Ann Datta) became Zoology Librarian. In 1971 the bird section books were moved out to the Zoological Museum at Tring with the new sub-department of Ornithology. In 1975 all the departmental libraries were reorganised under the authority of the new DLS, the Department of Library Services, where they remain today.