NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 25 number 1 - Fall 2004

Library Development: A Swarm of Butterflies and Termites for Library Collections

By Kathy Brown, Planning and Research

The history of any great library collection usually reveals a combination of knowledge, persistence, and passion. The NCSU Libraries' entomology collection, which is ranked among the best in the country, if not the world, is no exception. Its development can be attributed to the efforts of several key faculty members. Zeno P. Metcalf, professor and entomologist at NC State from 1912 to 1950, dedicated much of his career to the General Catalogue of the Homoptera of the World, a forty-two-volume index to his collection. This truly unique resource is now housed in the Libraries' Special Collections Research Center. David Allan Young Jr., a member of the faculty from 1957 to 1980, proved instrumental in helping the library acquire the collection of Friedrich F. Tippmann, a natural history enthusiast who had amassed 7,000 volumes related to insects. Maurice Farrier received the first NCSU Libraries Faculty Award in 1989 for his tireless efforts to enhance the breadth and depth of the entomology collection during his distinguished tenure at the university. Two current initiatives demonstrate that this passionate dedication to the entomology collection continues unabated.

The first initiative involves capturing some butterflies--a portfolio of prints entitled Papillons by Eugene Alain (E. A.) Seguy. Five years ago, NC State Professor of Entomology Lewis Deitz spearheaded a fund-raising effort to acquire Seguy's Insectes, another portfolio that depicts insects such as beetles, grasshoppers, and cicadas. The Insectes acquisition was a cooperative venture, with funding provided by BASF Corporation, the North Carolina Entomological Society, the NCSU Department of Entomology, and thirty individual donors. Deitz started the Papillons campaign with a display at this year's BugFest, an event sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh.

Deitz oversees the Department of Entomology's research collection of more than one million specimens and has teaching and research responsibilities. His commitment to the Libraries' research collection earned him the Faculty Award in 1999.

Papillons and Insectes were published in the 1920s, and both portfolios are extremely rare. Seguy based his images on illustrations in scientific publications, and he took great care to ensure their accuracy. The portfolios were produced using the pochoir technique, which entails hand coloring each plate through a large number of stencils. The colors in the Libraries' Insectes portfolio are deep and vibrant, and the insects look ready to fly, crawl, or hop off the page. Each portfolio has twenty plates, of which sixteen realistically depict various specimens and four present stylized compositions that reflect the Art Nouveau influence. Seguy wanted his portfolios to serve as a source of inspiration for artists, illustrators, and decorators. His success can be measured in part by the large number of wallpapers, wrapping papers, note cards, mosaics, and textiles that draw upon his images and ideas. "Call us greedy in wanting another Seguy portfolio," jokes Deitz, "but who can resist a work that combines scientific accuracy and artistic beauty?"

The second initiative reflects the understanding that passionate collecting requires sources of funding to supplement state allocations. To honor Elizabeth McMahan (professor emeritus, UNC-Chapel Hill) on the occasion of her eightieth birthday, Christine Nalepa of NCSU established an Incubator Endowment account in McMahan's name and solicited contributions from McMahan's colleagues, students, and friends. The Elizabeth A. McMahan Endowment will be used to support the Libraries' entomological collections, with a preference for social insects such as termites, ants, bees, and wasps. McMahan, or Betty to her family and friends, came from a close-knit farming family who lived in Pino, North Carolina. Surrounded by nature, McMahan declared her vocational plans as a young teenager by climbing a tree and carving "I shall be a great biologist" into the trunk.

McMahan's academic career began at Appalachian State University, where she intended to earn a degree that would allow her to become a high school science teacher. By chance, a faculty advisor introduced her to the field of parapsychology. Its uncharted territory piqued her imagination and led her to transfer to Duke University to work with J. B. Rhine, one of the leading figures in the discipline. Her involvement in parapsychology lasted from 1943 through 1954, during which time she completed the B.A. and M.A. degrees in psychology and published nine papers.

Eventually, she decided that parapsychology was too controversial for study at the doctoral level. She gradually realized that she was "attracted more and more toward books and projects involving insects." The University of Hawaii, with its exotic location, reputation in entomology, and offer of a teaching assistantship, drew McMahan to new environs. Termites were widely available on the islands and became the focus of her research. She received her Ph.D. from that institution in 1960.

After post-doctoral work at the University of Chicago, McMahan began teaching at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she remained for twenty-six years. Her research took her to Australia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Panama, and Ecuador. While others stayed in hotels and commuted to the research sites, she preferred primitive accommodations that allowed her to be in the field from dawn to dusk. Along the way she had encounters with difficult terrain, poisonous snakes, and vicious dogs. She was the first to document tool-use by an insect--an assassin bug that "fishes" for live termites by using dead termites as bait. Her discovery attracted the attention of scholars and the popular media alike. The Special Collections Research Center now has her field research films that show this phenomenon. Deitz describes the films as being of "scientific and historical significance."

Teaching was an equally important component of McMahan's career. McMahan's teaching philosophy is reflected in the remarks she made in 1980 at the memorial service of her mentor, J. B. Rhine. She stated, "I am a teacher now, and when I ask myself, 'How can I express adequately my gratitude for the continual kindness, the influence for good, the scientific education that I owe the Rhines?' then I think of the next generation of students. They deserve the sort of models, teachers, and friends that we found. . . ."

Through the years, McMahan and Nalepa have forged exactly that type of relationship. The two first met when McMahan delivered a paper at Wake Forest University, where Nalepa was completing a master's degree. Nalepa approached McMahan and asked about the possibility of studying and working with her. As Nalepa's interest in entomology grew, McMahan urged her to transfer to NC State and its more comprehensive program. Nalepa earned her Ph.D. at NCSU and now has a dual role as adjunct associate professor with the university and as laboratory research specialist with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. Her research activities include lady beetles, cockroaches, and, not surprisingly, termites

Nalepa says that McMahan's "formidable energy and the way she chooses to focus it" have been a constant source of inspiration. "She views life as a continuous learning process and has never been hesitant to tackle new intellectual topics or new physical challenges." McMahan's active pace during retirement provides ample evidence of her approach to life. She taught a year in Jamaica through the Peace Corps, crossed the Pacific eight times on cargo ships, and is busy writing and illustrating her memoirs and a series of children's books for her nieces, nephews, and the succeeding generations. She is the staff artist for the newsletter at Carolina Meadows in Chapel Hill, and her interest in Captain Cook and the Pitcairn Islands has led to publications on both subjects in professional journals. Nalepa describes McMahan as being "unfailingly modest about all these accomplishments. She has been one of my biggest cheerleaders throughout the twenty-five years I have known her, and I would be delighted to age with just a fraction of her positive outlook, courage, generosity, and spirit."

When asked why she thought an endowment would be an appropriate recognition for McMahan, Nalepa had the following response, "By establishing an endowment it was my intention to recognize two aspects of Dr. McMahan's distinguished career. First, her scientific contributions to the field of termite biology and behavior deserve acknowledgment in an important entomological collection such as the one at this university. Dr. McMahan's pioneering work with radioisotopes in studying the social relationships of termites, for example, laid the cornerstone for several key aspects of modern termite sociobiology. Second, she has had a mighty influence in the lives of all the pupils who passed through the doors of her classroom. Because she was so effective in conveying the beauty, challenge, and wonder of the insect world, a number of students whom she taught as undergraduates at UNC subsequently went on to receive graduate degrees in entomology here at NCSU."

McMahan, who states she was "overwhelmed" when she learned of the endowment, added her own contribution and is now a lifetime member of the Friends of the Library. Declaring that "a library makes a university," McMahan has been dismayed by the unrelenting pressures on collection budgets, especially in the sciences.

The NCSU Libraries is indeed fortunate to have passionate champions such as Lew Deitz, Betty McMahan, and Christy Nalepa helping to make a great collection even greater. Donations to these initiatives can be made by writing a check with a designation for the Seguy acquisition or the McMahan incubator endowment and mailing it to Friends of the Library, Campus Box 7111, Raleigh, N.C. 27695.