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Abstract
This article describes the efforts made by two librarians to retrace and reveal the lost story of a poorly documented special collection bequeathed to McGill University in 1914 by Henry Herbert Lyman, a local amateur entomologist. Lyman’s legacy lives on at the university through the Lyman Entomological Museum and Research Laboratory and the entomological literature collection, known as the Lyman Collection, housed at the Macdonald Campus Library. University archival materials, library records, and historical accounts of the museum and its literature collection helped trace the history and various moves of the collection and allowed us to identify those materials likely to have belonged to Lyman originally. The collection was analysed to determine its uniqueness within Canada as compared with a selection of comparator academic libraries.
Notes
Notes
1 Christian Dupont and Elizabeth Yakel, “’What’s So Special about Special Collections?’ Or, Assessing the Value Special Collections Bring to Academic Libraries,” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 8, no. 2 (2013): 9–21.
2 Conrad Cloutier, Jean-Marie Perron, and Christine Jean, “Extraits de l’évolution de l’entomologie appliquée au Québec: emphase sur la phytoprotection,” Phytoprotection 89, no. 2–3 (2008): 79–97; Scott A. Elias, “A Brief History of the Changing Occupations and Demographics of Coleopterists from the 18th through the 20th Century,” Journal of the History of Biology 47, no. 2 (2014): 213–42; Jean-Marie Perron, “Les insectiers: une mémoire importante de biodiversité,” Le Naturaliste Canadien 132, no. 2 (2008), 9–13; Robert Glen, “Entomology in Canada up to 1956: A Review of Developments and Accomplishments,” Canadian Entomologist, 88, no. 7 (1956): 290–371; Noel-M. Comeau, “A Glance at the History of Entomology and Entomological Collections in Quebec,” Annals of the Entomological Society of Quebec 10, no. 2 (1965): 85–90.
3 Elias, pp. 213–42; V. R. Vickery and George A. Moore, “The Lyman Entomological Museum, 1914–1964,” Canadian Entomologist 96, no. 12 (1964): 1489–94.
4 “Henry Herbert Lyman, M.A.,” Canadian Entomologist, 32, no. 1 (1900): 2.
5 C. J. S. Bethune, “Henry Herbert Lyman, M.A.,” Canadian Entomologist, 46, no. 7 (1914): 225.
6 George A. Moore, “History of the Montreal Branch of the Entomological Society of Ontario,” Canadian Entomologist, 80, no. 1–12 (1948): 29.
7 Bethune, “Henry Herbert Lyman, M.A.,” p. 224.
8 Ibid., p. 223.
9 Entomological Society of America, “List of ESA Fellows” <http://www.entsoc.org/awards/honors/fellows_list> [accessed 7 July 2018]; “List of Fellows of the Entomological Society of London,” Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (1901), vi.
10 Bethune, Henry Herbert Lyman, M.A., p. 224.
11 “Extract from the Memorandum of Pencilled Directions Found with the Will of the Late Henry H. Lyman,” 1964, McGill University Archives, Lyman Collection, records group 40, container 54, file 5135.
12 McGill University, “Redpath Museum: Mandate and History” <https://www.mcgill.ca/redpath/about> [accessed 3 May 2018].
13 McGill University, “About McGill: Flourishing under Sir John William Dawson” <https://www.mcgill.ca/about/history/features/dawson> [accessed 3 May 2018].
14 D. Keith McE. Kevan, “The Lyman Entomological Museum and Research Laboratory: A History to 1978,” Notes from the Lyman Entomological Museum and Research Laboratory 4 (1978): 2–3.
15 McGill University, “Natural Resource Sciences: Lyman Museum” <http://www.mcgill.ca/nrs/facilities/lyman> [accessed 3 May 2018].
16 Kevan, p. 6.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., p. 14.
19 Inter-departmental memorandum to Mrs M. Wells, 23 February 1966, McGill University, Macdonald Campus Library.
20 Inter-departmental memorandum to J. Finlayson regarding entomology collection, 1979, Macdonald Campus Library.
21 Macdonald College Library Lyman Collection, May 1974 (Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec: Macdonald College Library, 1974).
22 Minutes of the Macdonald Campus Library Advisory Committee Meeting, 20 May 2005, Macdonald Campus Library.
23 Proposal to transfer the Lyman Entomological Collections to Macdonald College, 1960, McGill University Archives, Macdonald College Lyman Entomological Collection, records group 2, container 251, file 7536.
24 Kevan, p. 6.
25 Henry H. Lyman, “On Butterfly Books,” Annual Report of the Entomological Society of Ontario, 28 (1897): 48.
26 Inter-departmental memorandum to Prof. J. E. McFarlane, 14 September 1988, Macdonald Campus Library.
27 Lyman, p. 50.
28 Cloutier, Perron, and Jean, p. 79; C. J. S. Bethune, “The Rise and Progress of Entomology in Canada,” Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Section IV, 2nd series, 4 (1898), 157; Elias, p. 224.
29 Elias, p. 230.
30 Ibid., p. 231; Perron, p. 13.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Natalie Waters
Natalie Waters has been an academic science and engineering librarian for fifteen years. She is currently the Head Librarian of the Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering at McGill University. Emily MacKenzie is Head Librarian of the Macdonald Campus Library at McGill University. She has been in public services librarianship for thirteen years.