NHM Library and Archives

14,000 followers 🎉🎉

Thank you so much!
#SharingTheWonder #CreatingAdvocatesForThePlanet

We've put together a 25-day #NHMAdventCalendar of Library and Archives art. Enjoy! 4. Octopus, Port Jackson Painter (active 1790s). Did you know… #AdventCalendar2025 #Christmas #SpecialCollections #Art #NaturalHistoryMuseum
Alt text: an advent calendar revealing a white octopus from below.

We've put together a 25-day advent calendar showcasing Library and Archives collections. Enjoy! 3. Dombeya excelsa, Ferdinand Bauer (drawn 1790-1807). Did you know… #adventcalendar #Christmas #SpecialCollections #Art #NaturalHistoryMuseum
Alt text: An advent calender revealing a fir tree frond

Good idea! -- seems obvious now you say it :-) We'll do a bit of tinkering behind the scenes (it will also mean our feed doesn't look too alarming)!

We've put together a 25-day advent calendar showcasing Library and Archives collections. Enjoy! 2. Red and Yellow Maccaw (Macrocercus aracanga), Edward Lear (publ. 1832). Did you know... #adventcalendar #Christmas #SpecialCollections #Art #NaturalHistoryMuseum Alt text: a red and green parrot

A box of botanical themed postcards.

A display of t shirts, scarves and socks.

Are you in love with the items featuring Abraham Gottlob Werner's 'Nomenclature of colours' (1814)? Then head over to our Digitised Special Collections to see the entire work.

⬆️ Use the link in our bio to explore this collection and many others.

#SciArt #NatureInArt #ZoologicalArt #BotanicalArt

A display of mugs, books, boxes and tins.

A display of four books.

If you're looking for Christmas present ideas, there are plenty in the Museum shop -- including many which use the Library and Archives collections!

Lots of ideas for the nature lover, artist or book worm in your life.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum #Archives #Christmas #SpecialCollections #EntomologicalArt

We've put together a 25-day advent calendar showcasing Library and Archives collections. Enjoy! 1. 'Snowy Owls’, John James Audubon (publ. 1827-1838). Did you know... #adventcalendar #Christmas #SpecialCollections #Art #NaturalHistoryMuseum #BirdsInArt
Alt text: an advent calendar, with 2 white owls

a blue background with the words happy december written on it ALT: a blue background with the words happy december written on it

Can you help make our December?? 🎁🎄🎉

We are a smidgen away from 14,000 followers, please share and help us get there ready for the big HO HO HO!

#NaturalHistoryMusuem #Library #Archives #Art #SpecialCollections #MuseumArchives #MuseumLibrary #Nature #NaturalHistory #Books #Science

A man stands proudly upright in his smart uniform. It has two rows of buttons down the front of the jacket, with details on the cuffs and collar. Behind him is a bricked building.

Moustachioed #NaturalHistoryMuseum messenger Ashton John Jones, photographed by Sir J. Benjamin Stone (1838 - 1914) in the colonnade at the back of the Waterhouse Building (1907).

#NaturalHistoryMuseum #Movember2025 #MuseumArchives

I'm delighted to be joining Kathryn Rooke and the @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social team to talk about their #okapi materials on 5 December. This show will be open 10-16:00, and I'll be on the okapi table at 10-11:00 and 12:00-13:00. Hope to see you there

Group of people looking at a table display of artwork and photographs, surrounded by bookshelves.

🔎Discovering the Okapi
🌍The Museum: creating advocates for the planet - the history of exhibitions and galleries at the NHM, and the way these have helped to develop a knowledge and appreciation of the natural world
🐋 Whales, Science and Conservation
🌱Ordering and Naming Nature

#Archives #Art

An event advert. The image is a mash up of five images including artwork, a photograph and sketch. The wording reads: Library & Archives Open Day, free, 5 December 2025 10.00 - 16.00. Location: Lasting Impressions Gallery (Red Zone).

Visitors to the Museum will have the exciting opportunity to enter our beautiful Earth Sciences Library.

A rare occasion to see treasures from the collection and learn about the Museum’s work as shown through the collections we care for.

#NaturalHistoryMuseum #SpecialCollections #MuseumArchives

A man in a grey jacket points at antique books as a crowd looks on with interest

A large serrated fossil shark's tooth rests on the palm of a hand, almost filling it

A conference report for our exhilarating 'Curious Collections' day at the Natural History Museum (@nhm-london.bsky.social)

curioustravellers.ac.uk/conference-r...

A print of a man with moustache and nightcap eating locusts from a platter.

A pencil moustache and a penchant for insects in L.M. Budgen’s Episodes of insect life (London: Reeve, Benham & Reeve, 1849)

#NaturalHistoryMuseum #Movember2025 #SpecialCollections

Two men holding up pretend moustaches pose either side of a marble bust of Brian Houghton-Hodgson (1801-1894).

Some of our colleagues have displayed classic #FOMO behaviour and joined in with Brian Houghton-Hodgson (1801-1894), an early expert on the fauna of India and Nepal, where he lived for many years.

Today, he graces our public reading room in South Kensington. #NaturalHistoryMuseum #Movember2025

A black and white photo showing a group of sixteen men gathered outside on grass, wearing matching plain dark uniforms and caps. They are in three rows, those at the back are standing, the middle sit on chairs and the front sit on the ground. A hose pipe snakes on the ground between them to the man on the far right who stands holding the nozzle as water shoots out of it.

From opening day in 1881 until 1971, Natural History Museum staff included fireman warders who patrolled the buildings and grounds day and night.

Moustaches encouraged, but not compulsory.

#Movember2025 #NaturalHistoryMuseum #MuseumArchives

A person places a mounted piece of original artwork into a glass case in a gallery space.

Here is an extra reason to visit the Treasures Gallery (free entry).

We've just changed the hand-coloured engraved plate from our copy of John James Audubon's 'The Birds of America' (1827-1838).

Plate 197: Loxia curvirostra / Red Crossbill.

On display until February 2026.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum

The Library and Archives are closed to external visitors and enquiries 10 - 14 November.

Our team are auditing the collections and having a whale of a time…🐋

#Audit #MuseumLibrary #MuseumArchives #ModernCollections #SpecialCollections #Teamwork

We are at #HistDay25 @instituteofhistoricalresearch.

Come and chat with our team - Kathryn, Heather and Eloise. We would love to support your research and hear about all the subjects you are interested in!

Book held in front of a bookshelf. The cover is blue and white striped, with an image of a pelican at the bottom.

Book held in front of a bookshelf. The cover is blue and white striped, with an image of a pelican at the bottom.

Fishlore: British freshwater fishes (1946)
Watching birds (1941)

⬆️Learn more about our collections and how to visit us via the link in our bio.

#NaturalHistoryMuseum #LibrariesOfInstagram #Bookstagram #InstaBooks #ModernCollections #Shelfie #BookCovers

Book held in front of a bookshelf. The cover is blue and white striped, with an image of a pelican at the bottom.

The books on our shelves tell the history of publishing as well as the history of natural history. We love these three Pelican books, held in our Zoology Library, Penguin books’ second imprint after their main series first launched in 1937.

Animal camouflage (1946)

Six books displayed in front of a seated statue of Charles Darwin.

Nine journals related to natural history and science displayed on a table.

Six journals related to natural history and science displayed on a table.

Eight journals related to natural history and science displayed on a table.

What's new pussycat? Recent additions to our library book and journal collections.

⬆️Learn more about our collections and how to visit us via the link in our bio.

#NaturalHistoryMuseum #ModernCollections #BookSky

A photograph of an eighteenth-century marbled paper with swirls of blue, yellow, pink and white.

Some lovely twirls and swirls from the 1781 edition of Pierre-Joseph's 'Histoire des insectes nuisibles à l'homme, aux bestiaux, à l'agriculture et au jardinage' (Paris, 1781). #MarbledMonday #MarbledPaper #SpecialCollections #BlueSkyBooks #Endpapers

Seven books displayed on a table in a library.

A peek on the returns shelf to see some of the items Museum staff have been returning recently... 🔎📚

#NaturalHistoryMuseum #Shelfie #ModernCollections #BookSky #Palaeontology #Invertebrates #NorthAtlantic #Flora #India #Fossils #Fishes

A book held in front of a bookshelf. The front cover of the book shows an illustration of a coast line, low sun and V formation of a flock of birds.

A book held open in front of a bookshelf. The title page and page opposite are illustrated with black and white drawings of flocks of birds.

This book from our Ornithology Library collection seems very fitting as birds migrate from the UK to warmer climes.

The travels of Birds (1916) by Frank M. Chapman.

⬆️Learn more about our collections and how to visit us via the link in our bio.

#NaturalHistoryMuseum #ModernCollections #Shelfie

Go behind the scenes of Walter Rothschild’s research library and personal book collection.
Librarian Cat O’Carroll will showcase natural history treasures from the 16th-20th centuries, including rare books, early photography and original artworks.
#NHMTring #SciArt #NatureInArt #ZoologicalArt

A sepia photograph showing an old library with high shelves up against the walls and a ladder leading to an upper walkway.

A black and white photograph showing a library reading room with two staff sitting at a large information enquiry desk in the centre. People can be seen sitting at desks around the bookshelves.

#OTD in 1975 our departmental libraries were formally centralised with the creation of a Department of Library Services.

Today our team continue to support the work of all our Museum staff and in the provision of a service to external visitors wanting to engage with our collections.

Two small eighteenth-century notebooks in covers of marbled paper. Each notebook has a black-edged label on the front cover, with a library label of SB o D1a at the left edge.

Because even stationery has the right to be lovely, here are two well-loved little notebooks from entomologist and silversmith Dru Drury (1725-1804). #NaturalHistoryMuseum #MarbledMonday #BlankBooks #Bookbinding #MarbledPaper #SpecialCollections #BlueSkyBooks

Cropped image of handwritten letterbook entry dated 10 May 1881. The letter, from Edw. A. Bond to William Carruthers, concerns the conduct of Senior Attendant Parker, who has been taking liberties with the timing of his lunch hour.

Why didn't *we* think of taking our "luncheon hour" at the end of the day, like Attendant Parker? #OpportunitiesMissed #ThrowbackThursday #NaturalHistoryMuseum