Quite often scientists are pegged as a very studious and serious group of individuals. In order for serious scientific research to be developed, nurtured and shared, this is a valid assumption. And scientists are very serious about their journals; either as a vehicle for getting their original research out to fellow scientists or in consulting other published material in their discipline (or other disciplines). However, every great now and then you come across evidence of some not-so-serious ‘published’ work that shows an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek side to scientists. I would like to share some examples I found in the Smithsonian Libraries Vertebrate Zoology collections.
Author: Polly Lasker
The end of an era has come to the Smithsonian Libraries and a new one begins! The current model of a library, with a physical location, books and journals on the shelves and a librarian to manage it all is so 2011. A hip, new model of a ‘ librarian-as-reference-resource-person-embedded-in-research-department’ has come for the National Zoological Park/Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2012!