Spotlight: National Renewable Energy Laboratory Publications Database

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL),
"is the only national laboratory solely dedicated to advancing renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies from concept to commercial application." Located in Golden, Colorado, the lab, which has been in existence for the last 35 years, has expertise in the following areas: Renewable Fuels, Renewable Electricity, Energy Science, Strategic Energy Analysis, Commercialization and Technology Transfer and Deployment.  The NREL is also the principal research laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). 

However, of interest to environmental researchers, the NREL, has a searchable online Publications Database available here.

          The database includes:

• Technical reports
• Journal articles
• Conference papers
• Patents
• Presentations
• Books
• Fact sheets
• Brochures.

In addition, the database also has an Advanced Search feature which allows users to search by title, author, source, publication year (plus others).  The database contains bibliographic information on "publications from 1977 to the present on subjects related to renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies."  Many publications are available in pdf while others can be obtained in print from other sources (click here for more information).

Spotlight: Archives of American Conservationists

Recently I have had a significant number of requests asking where to find information about some of the founders and major thinkers responsible for the environmental movement in the United States.  Other than monographs, one of the best sources for researching this topic is to determine whether an archival collection exists for a specific individual.  For those interested in researching the beginnings of environmental law please see below:

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
A conservationist, scientist, author and professor Leopold was most noted for his work A Sand County Almanac (1949) and his contributions to wilderness preservation.

• University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

The Leopold Collection houses the raw materials that document not only Leopold's rise to prominence but the history of conservation and the emergence of the field of ecology from the early 1900s until his death in 1948 . . . The collection has been augmented by correspondence and related materials carefully retained over the years by his mother, his wife, and other family members and professional associates; these span his entire life, but are most rich and voluminous for his early years. It also includes student notebooks and course materials from his studies in Burlington, Lawrenceville and Yale, and copies of his inspection reports on many national forests in the Southwest as well as hundreds of family photographs and photographs taken by Leopold to illustrate aspects of wildlife ecology and land management.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
A poet, essayist, naturalist, historian and transcendentalist, Thoreau is most well know for his work Walden (1854).

• The Walden Woods Project

The Thoreau Institute library (“The Henley Library”) holds more than 60,000 items that include books, manuscripts, periodicals, art, music, maps, pamphlets, correspondence, and personal histories. We are honored to be the designated repository for a number of important collections, including the extensive collections of the Thoreau Society. It is the mission of the library to collect, preserve and make available research materials relating to Thoreau, his historical context, and his contemporary relevance to human-rights and environmental issues.

John Muir (1938-1914)
A Scottish-born naturalist, essayist and wilderness advocate, Muir co-founded the Sierra Club and played a pivotal role in promoting Yosemite in California to become a National Park.

• University of the Pacific Holt-Atherton Special Collections

The Muir Papers consists of John Muir's correspondence, journals, manuscripts, notebooks, drawings, and photographs. It also includes some Muir family papers, the William and Maymie Kimes collection of Muir's published writings, the Sierra Club Papers (1896-1913 ), materials collected and generated by his biographers William Badè and Linnie Marsh Wolf, and John Muir's clippings files and memorabilia . . . Today, approximately 75% of the extant papers of Muir are preserved here. 

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
Often called the mother of the modern environmental movement, Carson's landmark book Silent Spring (1962) ushered in a new wave of environmental awareness at the national level.  A marine biologist and conservationist by trade, Carson also authored several other notable works.

• Yale University Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Library

The Rachel Carson Papers consist of manuscripts, notebooks, letters, newspaper clippings, photos, and printed material relating to the life and career of Rachel Carson. The collection spans the years 1921 to 1981, with the bulk of the material covering the period from 1950 to 1964. Currently, only a portion of these papers are available online.

Stewart L. Udall (1920-2010)
A former Arizona Congressman and Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Udall was responsible for advocating or sponsoring a number of major environmental statutes in the 1950s and 60s. He is also known for is work A Quiet Crisis (1964).

• University of Arizona Library Special Manuscript Collection

The collection is composed of Stewart Lee Udall's professional and public papers. Items of the 84th, 85th, and 86th Congresses are organized into administration and legislation files. Administration includes routine office matters, requests, and correspondence relating to particular problems or issues. Legislation encompasses correspondence arranged by subject, related bills, hearings, clippings, speeches, and background materials [from 1950-1977].

William O. Douglas (1801-1980)
The longest serving Justice in the history of the Supreme Court and an avid environmentalist in his later years, Douglas was responsible for authoring the memorable dissent in the case of Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972), which argued that inanimate objects should have standing to sue in court for environmental issues.

• Library of Congress

The papers of William Orville Douglas (1898-1980) span the years 1801 to 2008, with the heaviest concentration of material dated between 1923 and 1975. Although the collection is divided into three parts, some topics and time periods are common to all parts. Part I, dating from 1920 to 1953, focuses primarily on Douglas's professional life. Part II forms the bulk of the collection, and although it covers the years 180l to 1980, the earliest Douglas manuscript is dated 19l6. Part III is confined primarily to Douglas's diary and his personal correspondence with other justices of the United States Supreme Court. Part IV is made up chiefly of Douglas's correspondence, memoranda, and notes to Marshall L. Small, one of his law clerks, and family papers, primarily correspondence with his second wife, Mercedes D. Douglas Eichholz. The collection consists of a small group of family papers, several correspondence series, subject files, speeches and writings, Supreme Court files, financial papers, photographs, miscellany, and printed matter.

Related Resources

 Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law (2004). [Pace KF3775 .L398 2004]. 

Karl Boyd Brooks, Before Earth Day: The Origins of American Environmental Law 1945-1970 (2009). [Pace KF3775 .B727 2009]. 

Adam M. Sowards, The Environmental Justice: William O. Douglas and American Conservation (2009). [Pace KF8745.D6 S67 2009].  

Spotlight: University of Pittsburgh Archive Service Center

The University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center is home to an unusual collection that may be of interest to environmental legal researchers.  Specifically housed in the University's Archives of Industrial Society (AIS) the

(AIS) is the general designation [given to] the hundreds of historical collections related to the development of the urban industrial society, with an emphasis on Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania.

The Center's Environmental materials are comprised of approximately 52 distinct collections covering everything from state administrative agency documents and hearings to advocacy group records to zoning and land use documents and manuscripts.  For information about the specific collections click here for the finding aid.  

Spotlight: Water Resources Collections and Archive

The Water Resources Collections and Archives (WRCA), http://library.ucr.edu/wrca/ located on the campuses of the University of California Riverside and California State University, San Bernadino, was founded in 1958 in order “to collect, organize and make accessible information about water in all its manifestations.” The WRCA was originally designed as both a library and an archive so as “to preserve and make accessible unique technical information about all aspects of water in the West, [both] nationally and internationally.” Now recognized as one of the preeminent water law archives in the country, the collection is of interest to researchers focusing on water rights, dams, floods, rivers, aquifers and other water related issues in environmental legal history.

The archive’s collection which is searchable through the University’s Scotty Catalog and through the Online Archive of California is organized into five categories including, archival manuscripts, digital materials, maps, photographs, oral histories and

consists of more than 200,000 technical reports, 1,500 specialized newsletters, over 5,000 archival maps, and hundreds of videos. In addition, WRCA manages over 200 archival collections, and has more than 100,000 historic photographs and aerial photographs that document the history of water development in the West.

For an article discussing the archive in more detail click here.