Species Occurrence Data from the Journals of William Brewster, 1886-1894
Citation
Brewster W, Dearborn J, deVeer J, Lichtenberg M, Richard J (2023). Species Occurrence Data from the Journals of William Brewster, 1886-1894. Biodiversity Heritage Library. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/q45atb accessed via GBIF.org on 2024-12-02.Description
Collection Summary: Journals in which Brewster recorded observations of birds, their habitats and seasonal behavior, while traveling through New England and other areas of the United States.
Collector History Note: William Brewster (1851-1919) was a renowned American amateur ornithologist, and the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He amassed a collection of over forty thousand specimens of birds, nests, and eggs, one of the finest private collections of North American birds ever assembled. Brewster curated the bird collection at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) from 1885 until his death in 1919 at which time his personal collection was gifted to the Museum. Brewster conducted ornithological expeditions to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Colorado, West Virginia and North Carolina mountains, South Carolina and Georgia lowlands, Florida and to Trinidad. He served as Curator of mammals and birds, Boston Society of Natural History, from 1880 to 1887; Curator of mammals and birds, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, from 1885 to 1900. For additional biographical information see: Bird-Lore (1919) 21, pp. 277-286.
Collector ID: https://bionomia.net/Q2119625
Citations:
deVeer, J. (n.d.). William Brewster - Collection overview. Harvard CURIOSity Digital Collections. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/william-brewster-an-ornithologists-legacy
William Brewster Papers. (n.d.). Biodiversity Heritage Library. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/collection/WilliamBrewsterPapers
Purpose
As the urgency to address the climate crisis intensifies, the availability of accurate and comprehensive biodiversity data has become crucial for informing climate change studies, tracking key environmental indicators, and building global biodiversity monitoring platforms. The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) plays a vital role in the core biodiversity infrastructure, housing over 60 million pages of digitized literature about life on Earth. Recognizing the value of over 500 years of data in BHL, a global network of BHL staff is working to establish a scalable data pipeline to provide actionable occurrence data from BHL’s vast and diverse collections of primary source materials such as diaries, journals, correspondence, and photographs. See: https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.7.112436 for more information.
Additional info
BHL Data Disclaimer: https://about.biodiversitylibrary.org/tools-and-services/data-disclaimer/Taxonomic Coverages
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Animaliarank: kingdom
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Plantaerank: kingdom
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Avesrank: class
Geographic Coverages
Bibliographic Citations
- William Brewster Papers. (n.d.). Biodiversity Heritage Library. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/collection/WilliamBrewsterPapers - https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/collection/WilliamBrewsterPapers
- deVeer, J. (n.d.). William Brewster - Collection overview. Harvard CURIOSity Digital Collections. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/william-brewster-an-ornithologists-legacy - https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/william-brewster-an-ornithologists-legacy
- Dearborn, J., Lichtenberg, M., Richard, J. M., deVeer, J., Trizna, M., & Mika, K. (2023). Unearthing the Past for a Sustainable Future: Extracting and transforming data in the Biodiversity Heritage Library for climate action. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards, 7. - https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.7.112436
Contacts
William Brewsteroriginator
position: Curator of Mammals and Birds
Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge
Massachusetts
US
userId: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2119625
JJ Dearborn
metadata author
position: Data Manager, Biodiversity Heritage Library
Smithsonian Institution
Washington
District of Columbia
US
email: dearbornjj@si.edu
homepage: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4783-382X
Joseph deVeer
metadata author
position: Project Manager and Museum Liason
Harvard University, Ernst Mayr Library
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge
02138
Massachusetts
US
email: jdeveer@oeb.harvard.edu
homepage: https://library.mcz.harvard.edu/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0872-0718
Mike Lichtenberg
metadata author
position: Lead Developer and Solutions Architect
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Washington
District of Columbia
US
email: lichtenbergM@si.edu
homepage: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
userId: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0220-5275
Joel Richard
metadata author
position: Head of Web Services and IT
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
Washington
DC
US
email: richardj@si.edu
homepage: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4589-2351
JJ Dearborn
administrative point of contact
position: Data Manager, Biodiversity Heritage Library
Smithsonian Institution
Washington
District of Columbia
US
email: dearbornjj@si.edu
homepage: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4783-382X
Joseph deVeer
administrative point of contact
position: Project Manager and Museum Liason
Harvard University, Ernst Mayr Library
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge
02138
Massachusetts
US
email: jdeveer@oeb.harvard.edu
homepage: https://library.mcz.harvard.edu/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0872-0718
JJ Dearborn
administrative point of contact
position: Data Manager, Biodiversity Heritage Library
Smithsonian Institution
Washington
District of Columbia
US
email: dearbornjj@si.edu
homepage: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4783-382X
Joseph deVeer
administrative point of contact
position: Project Manager and Museum Liason
Harvard University, Ernst Mayr Library
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge
02138
Massachusetts
US
email: jdeveer@oeb.harvard.edu
homepage: https://library.mcz.harvard.edu/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0872-0718
Mike Lichtenberg
administrative point of contact
position: Lead Developer and Solutions Architect
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Washington
District of Columbia
US
email: lichtenbergM@si.edu
homepage: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
userId: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0220-5275
Joel Richard
administrative point of contact
position: Head of Web Services and IT
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
Washington
DC
US
email: richardj@si.edu
homepage: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
userId: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4589-2351