NCSU Libraries Focus Online
Volume 28 number 1 - Fall 2007
ARL Publication Documenting Research Collections Highlights
NCSU Entomological Archive
By Greg Raschke, Collections and Scholarly Communication
The NCSU Libraries' world-renowned entomological archive was selected
for inclusion as part of a unique book documenting renowned special
collections from across the United States and Canada in celebration
of the Association of Research Libraries' (ARL) seventh-fifth anniversary. Celebrating
Research Collections will chronicle one unique collection
from each of the top 100 research libraries in North America along
with photographs highlighting items from each collection and a
general profile of each library’s special collections program.
An accompanying Web site hosted by ARL will provide online access
to Celebrating Research Collections with additional photographs
and supporting information.
At the request of ARL, NC State submitted three collections for
consideration for inclusion in the book. In addition to the entomology
archive, the submission included the plant sciences collection--consisting
of the papers of groundbreaking researchers from the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries in the interdisciplinary spectrum of
the plant sciences--and the modernist architecture collection--composed
of papers of a number of faculty who founded NC State's School
of Architecture in 1948 and who quickly developed an international
reputation for innovation, experimentation, and modernist design.
The entomological archive is a major collection of rare books,
manuscripts, and drawings related to the study of entomology that
was built over decades in collaboration with faculty from NC State's
Department of Entomology and College of Veterinary Medicine. The
archive originated with Zeno Payne Metcalf, professor of entomology
and zoology at NC State from 1912 to 1950. Metcalf devoted his
life to the study of Homoptera, a group of insects now
known as Auchenorrhyncha. He amassed a collection that
contained virtually every word published on Homoptera from 1771
through 1955. Metcalf worked on an index to his collection, the
extraordinary forty-two-volume General Catalogue of the Homoptera
of the World, until his death in early 1956. The Zeno
P. Metcalf Entomology Research Collection consists of
some 1,150 rare books and 11,000 monographs, journals, and papers
forming the foundation of the entire entomology archive.
The next major component of the entomological archive, the Friedrich
F. Tippmann Collection, was the personal library of
a Viennese engineer and amateur entomologist. The Tippmann collection
is comprised of 975 monographic titles and periodicals ranging
from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries and contains some
of the most rare entomological works in the world. Additions
from Maurice Hugh Farrier, David A.
Young, Lewis Deitz, and countless
other entomology faculty and scholars have added to the Metcalf
and Tippmann collections to create the internationally renowned
archive now featured in ARL’s compilation. Celebrating
Research Collections will be available for purchase from
ARL in October. For more information on the entomological archive
or to support its growth and digitization, please call Greg Raschke,
associate director for collections and scholarly communication
at (919) 515-7188 or send an electronic-mail message to greg_raschke@ncsu.edu.
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