Collecting Nature: The American Environmental Movement and the Conservation Library

by Andrew G. Kirk

It was like no other library: not a musty, mute archive but a bustling center of activity and voice of advocacy. It brought together otherwise combative parties--sportsmen, lumbermen, librarians, politicians, even disputing activists--as it helped redefine what environmentalism means in America.

Denver's Conservation Library was established in 1960 as a repository for environmental and conservation documents. In chronicling its history, Andrew Kirk also traces the cultural history of American environmentalism as viewed through the lens of this unique institution. He tells how this library created by an older generation of technophobic men evolved into a cutting-edge laboratory for alternative technology research run by young women, mirroring tumultuous changes in American culture and social movements over the past four decades.

Kirk reveals how the Conservation Library Collection merged with various constituencies vying to shape it for their own purposes, and how it reflected the thinking of influences as diverse as John Muir and Stewart Brand. He introduces key players such as founder Arthur Carhart and administrator Kay Collins, then tells how the CLC was transformed into the Regional Energy/Environment Information Center, suffered cutbacks in the Reagan era that brought on its demise, and lately began a quiet resurgence as the archive it was originally intended to be.

Collecting Nature shows that the CLC was a microcosm for the environmental movement itself, as well as a clear barometer of its gender and generational shifts. Kirk's eloquent narrative reveals much about the ideological bases and promises of environmentalism, while showing how the movement grew from its conservationist and preservationist roots. In the process, Kirk contributes to the debate over the evolution of environmental thinking, with an eye toward resolving the differences among competing perspectives. Through the story of this unique institution, he shows us how we have come to define conservation, wilderness, and even nature itself.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Andrew Kirk is an associate professor and director of the Public History Program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and author of Collecting Nature: The American Environmental Movement and the Conservation Library.