The Libraries' featured exchange partner for April is our counterpart in Paris, France: the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) in Paris, France. We have
been corresponding and exchanging with them since at least 1937.
The MNHN was incorporated as the Muséum national
d'Histoire naturelle in 1793 during the French Revolution, and opened in
1794. After a complicated developmental history and receiving
financial autonomy in 1907, it began a new phase of growth, opening facilities
throughout France during the interwar
years. In recent decades, it has directed its research and education efforts at
the effects of human exploitation on the environment. In French public
administration, the Muséum is classed as a grand établissement of higher education.
The museum's mission, similar to that of the Smithsonian's, is both fundamental and applied research and public diffusion of knowledge. It is organized into seven research and three diffusion departments. The research departments are:
- Classification and evolution
- Regulation, Development, and Molecular Diversity
- Aquatic Environments and Populations
- Ecology and Biodiversity Management
- History of Earth
- Men, Nature, and Societies
- Prehistory
The diffusion departments are:
- Galleries of the Jardin des Plantes
- Botanical Parks and Zoo
- Museum of Man (Musée de l'Homme)
The Libraries receive the following journals from the Museum in exchange for our various Smithsonian Contributions series:
- Adansonia (botany)
- Geodiversitas (earth sciences)
- Zoosystema (zoology, animal ecology)
- Memoires du Museum National
—Dana Feil and Polly Khater
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