A Resource for Kansas Biology Teachers
Back in the fall of 1969 I arrived on KU’s campus. One of the first stops for me was the Museum of Natural History but I only viewed the famous dioramas along with horse, Comanche. Like many during those times I was uncertain about what I wanted to study. I tried out a number of possible fields like engineering and physical anthropology but I finally found my true calling late in my sophomore year when I started realize that KU was a great place for biology and field biology in particular. I discovered the Miscellaneous Publications from the museum. Mammals of KS, Fishes of Kansas, Unioid Mussels of Ks, Gastropods of Ks, Spiders of the Natural History Reservation, and so on. For a small town Kansas kid these books and pamphlets were inspiring and motivating. I decided then and there to work at becoming a field biologist.
For the last few years I have been thinking about scanning my collection of these publications (all pre-1975) in order to share. This fall I asked around to see if I could get permission to do so. Low and behold, I found that I didn’t need to—it was already done! Woo Hoo. I’m not sure how you may or may not want to use these resources but you can find them at the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s web site:
University of Kansas Museum of Natural History Miscellaneous Publications
In the top bar you’ll find a scroll down menu that will allow you to view all the available documents and download them as PDF’s.
Here’s a list of some of the earlier publications:
