Museum Archives

Museum Archives

The archives of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History was formally established in 1982 by the Board of Trustees as the repository of recorded information by and about the Museum. However, it has existed as a collection since the founding of the Museum more than a century ago.

Institutional records housed in the archives include an extensive array of documents, memorabilia, media, and artifacts representing historical topics in the administration of the Museum by its trustees and directors; scientific research, fieldwork, and professional practice of former Museum scientists, curators, and honorary associates; press, marketing, and development; Museum publications and merchandise; and Museum exhibits, programming, and outreach.

The archives also houses special collections concerning events or people whose work is associated with the Museum’s mission. Material of this type includes the Henry Wood Elliott Fur Seal Controversy papers; an autograph collection of explorers and scientists; correspondence of a circle of 19th-century botanists, including Jared Potter Kirtland; extensive ornithological records kept over the last century by amateur and professional naturalists in the Cleveland area; and the records of several affiliated societies and clubs. Upon the Museum's merger with HealthSpace Cleveland and Eco-City Cleveland in 2007 and 2008, respectively, the archives of those institutions were merged with the Museum archives.

Museum Publications

The Museum is creating digital archives of its own publications on an ongoing basis. These include:

• Kirtlandia, the scientific publication of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. This publication is available online through the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Many additional scientific publications produced by the Museum before the advent of Kirtlandia also exist. Many of these are available through a variety of digital sources; a comprehensive digitization of these materials is in development.
• Explore, the member magazine of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and all of its precursors
• The Museum’s Annual Reports

Contact

Joe Tait

Librarian & Archivist

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Joe Tait is the Librarian & Archivist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. A native Clevelander, he counts childhood visits to the Museum among the formative experiences of his lifetime of creativity and learning. He is a practicing artist with a master’s degree in art education from Case Western Reserve University. After almost 20 years teaching art in Cleveland-area schools, Tait changed careers, earning his master's degree in library and information science from Kent State University. His keen interest in the ability of artifacts and the material of history to tell stories is apparent in his art and archival work. While studying at Kent, in 2017, Tait began volunteering in the archives at the Museum. He was hired as a project archivist upon the completion of his degree program in 2018, eventually assuming his current role managing the Museum's archives, library, and rare books and fine arts collections.