Subject: Bird literature
Date: Dec 22 12:39:03 1994
From: "Michelsen, Teresa" - TEMI461 at ecy.wa.gov



There was a recent lament (by Dennis I think) that older but still valuable
bird literature seemed to be lost to modern birders. I was musing on this
over the weekend...

As a previous academic type now working for State government, I know it is
nearly impossible to keep up with the literature like I used to, even in my
own field (environmental chemistry). There are many reasons for this, not
the least of which that the State does not support this activity (doesn't
buy journals, doesn't recognize it as a priority activity, no libraries in
regional offices). This means we do it on our own time with our own money.
Given this, I put all my literature efforts into keeping current in my own
field, and have little time to review current (much less older or historic)
bird literature.

However, it occurred to me that I feel much more connected to both the
current and historical literature in my other hobby (mineralogy and mineral
collecting). Upon reflection, I think this is because the mineralogy
journals for collectors have much stronger ties to the historic literature
and to history in general, and take it upon themselves to educate their
amateur readers. For example, Mineralogical Record typically contains, in
one issue, recent finds and collector reports (analogous to field notes or
bird hotlines), traditional scientific articles such as crystallographic
identification of new minerals (analogous to current scientific literature),
AND historical articles, such as biographies of historical collectors and
histories of mines and mining districts. In addition, they have devoted
entire issues to the science and history of collecting of individual
minerals or mineral assemblages. Recently, they devoted an entire issue to
the history of mineral collecting around the world (!), from the Romans
onward. This was a monumental task, considering that much of the historic
mineralogy literature is in Russian, French, Italian, German, Polish, etc.
and has never been translated (a massive bibliography was included). Also
of interest were articles documenting the origins of mineral collections in
museums. Imagine if popular birding journals were to devote space to
similar articles about historic and influental birders, historical
ornithological literature, individual species, and museum collections!!

I can't help feeling that it is the responsibility of those who publish
journals or magazines for birdwatchers and those who have the good luck to
have ornithological literature review as part of their official duties to
make the historical (and current) literature accessable to those of us who
can only wish that we could somehow include birding as part of our jobs!!
I'm just not sure how we could access the material in any other way. On
those lines, thanks to Dennis and others who constantly remind and inform us
of what is available when it's relevant to a topic under discussion.

One final note - Dennis also recently commented that he probably does a lot
of his writing on the net and wished he could publish it. In a way, you are
publishing it. I for one am printing out the occasional messages that
contain detailed information on bird identification to keep in a file for
future reference. I have never found this degree of useful information in a
readily available field guide!!! Thanks to everyone who is sharing their
knowledge in this way - it has inestimably increased my enjoyment and
ability to succeed at birdwatching. I especially enjoy the behavioral
notes, since there is really so much more to birdwatching than listing. You
could, if you wanted to, keep these messages in a separate folder (or
directory), and publish them occasionally (in a special WOS edition?). In
this way you could share them with more people.

Hope this wasn't too "off the subject"...

Teresa Michelsen
Department of Ecology
temi461 at ecy.wa.gov