Library
The PRI library collection is a significant research resource of approximately 60,000 books and serials. Particular emphasis is found in malacology (fossil and Recent mollusks) and invertebrate paleontology, plus substantial additional holdings in vertebrate paleontology, geology, evolutionary biology, and related disciplines. Our library supports the research activities of the Institution’s staff, students, and visiting scientists. The collection originated as the personal research library of PRI’s founder, Gilbert Harris, a retired Cornell Professor of Geology. It has been added to by purchases, gifts, and donations over the past 80 years. This has resulted in the development of one of the largest and strongest paleontological library collections in the country.
The John W. Wells Rare Book library at PRI.
Highlights of the library include nearly 1,000 volumes representing approximately 700 titles in the John Wells Rare Book collection, which established in 1996. Among the most notable items in this collection are Recreatio Mentis et Oculi in Observatione Animalium Testaceorum by Philippo Buonanni (Rome, 1684 – the oldest volume in the collection), D’Amboinsche Rariteitkamer by Georg Rumphius (1741), Historia Conchyliorum by Martin Lister (1770), Zoologia Adriatica by Guiseppe Olivi (1792), and Proboscidea: Mastodonts and Elephants of the World, by Henry Fairfield Osborn (1936).
Title page and select images from D’Amboinsche Rariteitkamer by Georg Rumphius (1741). Rumphius lived much of his life on the Pacific island of Ambon (now part of Indonesia) and in this work named many of the shells and other sea creatures that he encountered. In this book, Rumphius described the chambered nautilus for the first time, illustrating both its shell and soft parts.
While the rest of PRI has undergone renovation and rejuvenation over the past 25 years, space limitations have caused the library to languish. Fortunately, much needed rehabilitation has now become possible by PRI's acquisition of a new building on its campus that will for the first time provide space for the library. The Erle G. Kauffman Library Fund—named in honor of Indiana University paleontologist Dr. Erle Kauffman (1933-2016)—has been developed at PRI to support the rejuvenation of PRI’s library. With your support of the Kauffman Fund, PRI can protect this irreplaceable resource and make it more readily accessible to PRI staff and volunteers, graduate and undergraduate students, visiting researchers, and the wider scientific community.
Please direct questions regarding the PRI library collection to Dr. Jonathan Hendricks, Director of Science Communication, by phone at 607-273-6623 x120 or by e-mail at [email protected].
The Gertrud Wolfner PRI Archives
The Paleontological Research Institution has received the specimens, libraries, and personal files of many prominent North American paleontologists during its nearly 90-year history, including Gilbert Harris, Katherine V. W. Palmer, Curt Teichert, and Victor E. Schmidt, professionals of national and international prominence. This invaluable resource has been chronicled within The Gertrud Wolfner PRI Archives. The Archives collections include correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, awards, field notebooks, maps, and other artifacts from more than 30 paleontologists. See additional details below.
Please direct questions regarding the Gertrude Wolfner PRI Archives to Dr. Jonathan Hendricks, Director of Science Communication, by phone at 607-273-6623 x120 or by e-mail at [email protected].
About Gertrud Wolfner
Gertrud Wolfner’s remarkable life began on July 27, 1915, in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She trained as a nurse and social worker, but was forced to flee when the Nazis invaded. Escaping to England, she spent the remainder of the war working as a nurse with the Red Cross. After WWII, Gertrud returned to Prague, where she found herself the only survivor in her family. She left once again when the Communists came into power. Settling in Venezuela, she met and married Albert Wolfner and had a daughter with him, Mariana. The family then moved to New York City, where Gertrud worked as a social worker. Retiring in 1985, she began volunteering with multiple organizations, including the American Museum of Natural History, where she worked in the institution’s archives.
In the 1990s, Gertrud moved to Ithaca to be near her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren. Arriving in Ithaca, she continued her volunteer work at PRI. She is remembered for her energy, bolting up three floors into the archives, and working tirelessly to impose order onto the Gilbert Harris Collection of papers and photographs. Gertrud’s experience at AMNH served both her and PRI well as she relentlessly and meticulously labeled, sorted, and archived the files. Her work was always professional, leaving detailed and well-written notes on everything she touched. By the time she finished her volunteer work, the Harris Collection was completely archived.
Gertrud passed away on September 17, 2014, at the age of 99. A generous gift in her honor helped establish the Gertrud Wolfner PRI Archives and this website.
Major Collections in the Gertrud Wolfner PRI Archives
The most significant collections in the Wolfner Archive are the papers and media of Gilbert Harris, Katherine V.W. Palmer, and Curt Teichert. These are all well organized and accessible.
Gilbert D. Harris Collection
Predominant Dates: 1872-1954
Personal and professional papers of Gilbert Dennison Harris (1864-1952), paleontologist, founder, and first director of PRI.
This collection documents the personal life and career of Gilbert Dennison Harris, as well as the early days of Paleontological Research Institution and Harris Printing Company (now PRI Publications). Records include correspondence, field notebooks, photographs, field equipment, published and unpublished manuscripts, biographies, and memorials, . These materials also document his activities with Cornell University, U.S. Geological Survey, Louisiana Geological Survey, Arkansas Geological Survey, and Standard Oil Company, in Trinidad, Venezuela, Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and other.
Highlight from the Collection:
Of particular note in the collection are artifacts from boating expeditions Harris organized for field work with his students. Extensive waterways permitted access to remote locations from Ithaca, NY to Chesapeake Bay. Seen below is the Ecphora, the fourth such boat commissioned for this purpose.
Gilbert Harris’s fossil-collecting boat, the Ecphora.
At the end of a three-month field trip on the Ecphora, student LLoyd G. "Nellie" Grinnell celebrated the experience in his diary:
"Thus ended the epic trip of the great little ship, the Ecphora, and her baby the Pecten, which had bobed along behind us for many a league of knots. This had been a great experience for all of us, and a grand cruise in more ways than one. We all felt it had been eminently successful, as we had found many wonderful specimens and discovered several new species for Professor Harris and his department to classify and name. We had had a lot of fun and we all loved and respected one another. It was a grand bunch of fellows, but more than that for dear Professor Harris: we all felt that he was super, and the finest and grandest man it had ever been our privilege to be associated with. May he live long and ever happily in order that he may fulfill a great contribution to Geology and particularly to Paleontology. His name and his fame will echo down through to ages, long after the rest of this motley crew are forgotten." (July 28, 1914)
From the diary of Lloyd G. "Nellie" Grinnell, describing a three-month field trip with Gilbert Harris on the Ecphora. Source: Brice, W. R. 1989. Cornell Geology through the Years. College of Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 230 pp.
Katherine V.W. Palmer Collection
Predominant Dates: 1918–1982
Personal and professional papers of Katherine V. W. Palmer (1918-1982), paleontologist and charter member, life trustee, and second director of PRI.
This collection documents the life and scientific work of Katherine V. W. Palmer. Records include correspondence, research notes, publications and drafts of publications, teaching materials, pamphlets and news clippings, slides, and photographs.
Dr. Palmer was a firm believer in reusing paper, and much of her material is either on the back of or pasted over other printed documents. These "hidden" contents are not cataloged. Notes are often written on the folders as well, although these may or may not have any bearing on the current contents.
Highlight from the Collection:
In April, 1978, Tulane University held the two-day conference "Paleontology is Alive and Well: A Symposium in Honor of Dr. Katherine Van Winkle Palmer." Dr. Palmer was at the forefront of paleontological research during her lifetime and contributed to the popularization of the field, particularly among female scientists. The Katherine V. W. Palmer Collection contains both professional and personal papers, including this program of events from the Tulane symposium.
Curt Teichert Collection
Predominant Dates: 1905-1996
Personal and professional papers of Curt Teichert (1905-1996), paleontologist, stratigrapher, teacher, and editor of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Records include correspondence, photographs (prints, films, slides), manuscripts and manuscript notes, reprints, research tools, field notebooks, maps, original sketches, scrapbooks, and his honorary medals. Especially well documented are the 1931-1932 Danish expedition to East Greenland, his participation in the Treatise project and CENTO Stratigraphic Correlation project (in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan), and his forced retirement from University of Kansas. Other localities extensively covered include Berlin, Denmark, Western Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, Pakistan, Washington DC, Colorado, New Mexico, and the American west in the 1930s.
The Teichert files are a treasure of information about his life, career, and paleontology during his time. Teichert was an avid correspondent, often writing 10-20 letters per day. He was also meticulous in documenting this activity, keeping letters he received and carbon copies of his own letters, ranging from simple reprint requests to multipage responses to colleagues about research questions (all well-organized in files either by colleague or year). He also loved to relate stories about his career, the field sites he had worked, and about interesting people and colleagues he had met.
Highlight from the Collection:
Below is the Paleontological Society Medal, awarded to Curt Teichert, now a cherished part of our collection at PRI.
Paleontological Society Medal to Curt Teichert.
Citation for award by Arthur J. Boucot:
“Curt Teichert is unique because his career is a model of accomplishment achieved through careful attention to detail on a truly global scale. ... I mention some of his accomplishments here briefly to show the extraordinary diversity of his professional commitment; his comprehensive mastery of the nautiloid cephalopods both in time in space; his pioneering studies of the bedrock stratigraphy and paleontology of much of Western Australia; his profound knowledge of global stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and general regional geology ...; his many services to our profession as Editor of the Treatise, holder of various Society offices, and member of endless committees; his leadership of the large AID program in stratigraphy in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan ...; his success as a teacher from Perth to Melbourne to Lawrence to Rochester; his work as a young man on Geschiebekunde and in Estonia; his participation in a famous East Greenland expedition ...; his spearheading so much in the way of Gondwana studies; and the shear volume of his scholarly published contributions.”
Victor E. Schmidt Collection
Predominant Dates:1979–1995
Samples, tools, and research data from Victor E. Schmidt's extensive study of the Sixmile Creek area. Of particular note are his "field tapes": these are long, thin sheets of notes designed to be placed next to the samples to indicate specific features of the varves.
Highlight from the Collection
Victor Schmidt devised two variants of a device to collect a 24-inch-long sample of varved sediment from a pre-augured core hole. This permitted sampling in areas where a sample could not be obtained from a sloping surface. One such device is in the Schmidt Collection at PRI. Schmidt's incomplete description of the device, together with sketches, has been edited and synthesized by the collection organizers. This, as well as the original notes, also resides in the collection.
Other Archive Collections
Other collections in the Wolfner Archive at PRI include materials from Don Badman, Carlton Brett, J. Thomas Dutro Jr., Helen and Floyd Hodson, S. C. Hollister, Don Kissiling, William F. Klose, Donald Malick, Carlotta Maury, James McLean, Axel Olsson, Dorothy Palmer, William D. Pitt, Helen Plummer, John Pojeta Jr., Burnett Smith, E. R. Smith, Julian Smith, Emily and Harold Vokes, Norman Weisbord, John Wells, Maynard White, and William Zinsmeister.
Many of these collections have not yet been cataloged. Please email [email protected] for more information.
The PRI Specimen Collections include fossils and modern specimens donated, identified, and/or described by many of the scientists featured in our Archives. To search for these materials, please visit the PRI Specimen Collections Database.