Fruitful collaborations: the Taylor White project in the Blacker Wood Natural History Collection

Abstract

As part of a themed print issue of Notes and Records dedicated to a research project surrounding the eighteenth-century Taylor White collection of animal paintings, this article provides context by describing the initial acquisition of the collection, and by situating it within the larger Blacker Wood Natural History Collection held at McGill University Library. Highlights of the Blacker Wood Collection are discussed, along with the collection's founder, Dr Casey Wood. The second part of the article provides a brief examination of the movement, in some academic administrative circles, towards the ‘de-professionalization’ of librarian work within academic libraries, and offers an outline of the specialized skills that librarians bring to the description, analysis and preservation of special collections. The Taylor White Project is then offered as an example of research collaborations between scholars and librarians; a description of the advantages of embedding a scholar within specific library collections to work with, rather than replace, a librarian is provided. The author suggests this strategy as one potential answer to the question of ‘de-professionalization’, to move away from divisive discussions towards a more symbiotic relationship between scholars and librarians.