Museums and Their Libraries

Many museums have their own Libraries, with some resources that are accessible on-line. The American Museum of Natural History in New York, for example, has the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Research Library and Learning Center. It is a repository for on-line scientific publications and archives. There you can find articles, A to Z, relevant to agriculture through zoology

The Smithsonian Libraries Archives in Washington, D.C., offer digital collections and books on-line. There you can find material about popcorn and peanut machines of a century ago, as well as information about how solar winds are energized. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History houses a physical Library on-site with archival collections that do not circulate, but there is a bit of on-line digitalized access. The Carnegie offers access to an on-line catalogue, and a few programs are offered, too, such as virtual field trips and panel discussions.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has the David M. Rubenstein National Institute for Holocaust Documentation. Many items are accessible digitally, some on-line. It “acquires, preserves, and makes accessible the historical record of the Holocaust and supports the Museum’s wide-ranging efforts in the areas of research, exhibition, publication, education, and memorialization.” The Holocaust Museum’s purpose is not the usual. It serves to keep alive a memory for everyone that must not ever be lost, or denied as never having happened. I have chosen it for personal reasons as the more detailed example for you of what can be found on-line in fact-based collections of so much import.

You can go on-line at the Holocaust Museum, and find these moving words:

“Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for his postwar statement,” as follows:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out- <indent>Because I was not a Socialist.</indent> Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out- <indent> Because I was not a Trade Unionist.</indent> Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out- <indent>Because I was not a Jew.</indent> Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me.

The above on-line museum examples are just a taste of what is at your computer fingertips if you are looking for factual, specific subject matter or just in the mood to explore in a lazy sort of way. The full scope of reliable resources that museums and their supporting archives and Libraries offer becomes so much more evident when one comes to realize that museums and Libraries are not just physical entities, but virtual resource bodies as well.