Darwin Library, Now Online, Reveals Mind of 19th-Century Naturalist | The Chronicle

Bookmarked Darwin Library, Now Online, Reveals Mind of 19th-Century Naturalist by Jie Jenny Zou (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

A portion of Charles Darwin’s vast scientific library—including handwritten notes that the 19-century English naturalist scribbled in the margins of his books—has been digitized and is available online. Readers can now get a firsthand look into the mind of the man behind the theory of evolution.

The project to digitize Darwin’s extensive library, which includes 1,480 scientific books, was a joint effort with the University of Cambridge, the Darwin Manuscripts Project at the American Museum of Natural History, the Natural History Museum in Britain, and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

The digital library, which includes 330 of the most heavily annotated books in the collection, is fully indexed—allowing readers to search through transcriptions of the naturalist’s handwritten notes that were compiled by the Darwin scholars Mario A. Di Gregorio and Nick Gill in 1990.

Charles Darwin’s Library from the Biodiversity Heritage Library