Our latest BHL 20th Anniversary Treasures post comes from Elizabeth McKinley (@emckinley) at the Field Museum’s Marie Louise Rosenthal Library. It tells a wonderfully BHL story about rare books, scientific nomenclature, historical detective work, and the value of bringing related literature together online.
While investigating an eighteenth-century work by German zoologist and geographer E.A.W. Zimmermann for possible acquisition, Elizabeth discovered that Zimmermann’s earlier 1777 publication had been formally rejected for zoological nomenclature. His substantially revised German edition of 1778–1783, however, was later officially accepted.
Digging further revealed a particularly nice connection to the Field Museum: Wilfred H. Osgood and Philip Hershkovitz were involved in the twentieth-century correspondence that helped establish the later work’s nomenclatural status.
The Field Museum has now acquired the rare three-volume work, including its remarkable map of zoological geography, and digitised it for BHL.
With the accepted edition now available alongside Zimmermann’s rejected earlier work and the ICZN ruling that links the two, BHL brings together the pieces of a scientific story spanning nearly two centuries.
Read the post: Rejected to Accepted: E.A.W. Zimmermann’s Geographische Geschichte des Menschen, und der allgemein verbreiteten vierfüßigen Thiere
