Scientific Services
Let us use our natural-history and collection-care expertise to help you with your needs.
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Susan Goods © Canadian Museum of Nature
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Susan Goods © Canadian Museum of Nature
Library
The collection is particularly strong in the fields of the Canadian Arctic, ornithology, systematics and taxonomy. Our collection specializes in the subject areas of interest to the museum, including biology, biodiversity, botany, conservation and care of collections, ecology, mineral sciences, natural history, wildlife and zoology.
The library contains
- more than 35 000 books
- 2000 periodical titles, of which 100 are current subscriptions
- museum publications
- Rare Book Collection
- microforms, cassettes, CD-Rom, CDs, DVDs.
The library is located at our research and collections facility in Gatineau, Quebec.
Online Library Catalogue
Browse the online catalogue of the museum's library holdings. The online catalogue contains all library holdings catalogued since 1978. Pre-1978 materials must be accessed manually through the card catalogue.
Interlibrary Loans
The interlibrary loan service allows museum staff to borrow material from other libraries and provides loans to external users through their own library. To request interlibrary loans, please contact us.
Serials (Journals and Periodicals)
The library subscribes to approximately 100 journals in natural history. Current issues of serials are displayed at the front of the library for one month. Bound and unbound volumes of serials are shelved in call number order on the first floor. The serials are searchables in the online catalogue.
Rare Book Collection
The Rare Book Collection consists of 4000 pre-20th century monographs, manuscripts and periodicals that cover expeditions, natural history and biological and Earth sciences dating back to the 1500s.
Reference Services
The library staff provides basic reference services.
The Archives
The Canadian Museum of Nature's archives hold three collections: the Archives, the Nature Art Collection and the Photograph Collection
Archives
The Archives hold approximately 1.5 kilometres of shelf space of unpublished documents, mostly institutional records. The institutional records offer insight into the past and present activities of our exhibitions, research, collections and administration. The archives hold files that document the museum's history and the museum's mandate—they tell us stories about field trips, discoveries, exhibitions, our natural world and more.
Nature Art Collection
Besides the beautiful and exactingly naturalistic backgrounds of the dioramas on exhibition in the museum, our nature art collection includes more than 1800 items such as oil paintings, watercolours, photographs, drawings, decoys, sculptures, carvings, tapestries representing artists such as Grondin, Landsdowne, Ely Kish, Malak Karsh and Belzaire.
Photograph Collection
Photographed mostly by the museum's staff, this collection consists of more than 275 000 slides, photos, negatives and glass plates. This collection represents images of the natural world, with an emphasis on Canadian material.
Some material is available for reproduction. More information.
General Information
On-site access to our Library and Archives is temporarily closed.
Contact Us
Library: 613.566.4734
Archives: 613.364.4047
Email: cmnlib@nature.ca
Fax: 613.364.4026
Mailing Address
Canadian Museum of Nature
Library and Archives
P.O. Box 3443, Station D
Ottawa, ON K1P 6P4
Canada