Thursday, March 21, 2013

"Parts and Wholes" Exhibit Ends on Friday, March 29

The Special Collections exhibit "Parts and Wholes" ends next Friday, March 29. We hope you will take the opportunity during spring break to see it. 

As we have noted in earlier posts, the exhibit features works of science and natural history, revealing examples of print culture, and specimens from campus museums. For example, it pairs (in separate but adjacent cases!) a so-called wet preparation of medusae from the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum  with striking color illustrations from publications of the prolific and controversial life scientist Ernest Haeckel (1834-1919):  

from Haeckel, Ernst, Das System der Medusen (1879). Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison.


The term medusae (plural of medusa) refers to the head of Medusa in Greek mythology. Carl von Linnaeus is credited with coining the term; Haeckel's color illustrations helped to popularize medusae.

Special Collections is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. The exhibit area is located on the 9th floor of Memorial Library.

The next exhibit in Special Collections, entitled "Text Support: A Library Exhibit about Paper," opens on April 15.