At over 1,200 linear feet, the WCS Archives contains historical documents, albums and scrapbooks, artwork, publications, and ephemera created throughout the organization's history and reflecting WCS's work in wildlife conservation, education, and zoos and aquariums.
Finding aids are guides to archival collections. They include descriptions of a collection’s contents, related biographical and historical information, and information on any use and access restrictions on the materials.
The WCS Library & Archives is committed to upholding WCS’s standards in diversity, equity, and inclusion in our finding aids and descriptions. We recognize that some of the collections were processed and finding aids were created during a time when these considerations were not in place, leading to the use of some harmful language.
We are reviewing our finding aids and adding statements acknowledging when collections may contain harmful language. The language may be retained in certain situations; in these cases, we will add any necessary clarification on why the original description was used. In cases where we may change the language, we will also add a statement regarding the update. We recognize that the act of description is not neutral, and we will be relying on resources (The Disability Language Style Guide, Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia Anti-Racist Description Resources, Society of American Archivists' Inclusive Description Guide) to help inform our choices for accurate and respectful description.
We also welcome feedback on this work as description is a continuously evolving area of the archival practice. The WCS Library & Archives can be contacted at library@wcs.org.
Please click on this link to access our finding aids.