This volume is intended to serve as a general introduction to the collections of the Illinois State Museum.

Once treated as exclusive spaces for valuable but hidden and under-utilized material, over the past few decades special collections departments have been transformed by increased digitization and educational outreach efforts into unique and highly visible major institutional assets. What libraries must now contemplate is how to continue this momentum by articulating and implementing a dynamic strategic vision for their special collections. Drawing on the expertise of a world-class array of librarians, university faculty, book dealers, collectors, and donors, this collected volume surveys the emerging requirements of today’s knowledge ecosystem and charts a course for the future of special collections. Expanding upon the proceedings of the National Colloquium on Special Collections organized by the Kelvin Smith Library of Case Western Reserve University in October 2014, this timely resource for special collections librarians, administrators, academics, and rare book dealers and collectors recounts the factors that governed the growth and use of special collections in the past;explores ways to build 21st-century special collections that are accessible globally, and how to provide the expertise and services necessary to support collection use;gives advice on developing and maintaining strong relationships between libraries and collectors, with special attention paid to the importance of donor relations;provides critical information on how libraries and their institutions’ faculty can best collaborate to ensure students and other researchers are aware of the resources available to them;showcases proactive, forward-thinking approaches to applying digital scholarship techniques to special collections materials;looks at how the changes in the way authors work—from analog to digital—increases the importance of archives in preserving the aspects of humanity that elevate us; and examines sustainable and scalable approaches to promoting the use of special collections in the digital age, including the roles of social media and crowdsourcing to bring collections directly to the user.More than simply a guide to collection management, this book details myriad ways to forge the future of special collections, ensuring that these scholarly treasures advance knowledge for years to come.

From grasshoppers to grubs, an eye-opening look at insect cuisine around the world. An estimated two billion people worldwide regularly consume insects, yet bugs are rarely eaten in the West. Why are some disgusted at the thought of eating insects while others find them delicious? Edible Insects: A Global History provides a broad introduction to the role of insects as human food, from our prehistoric past to current food trends—and even recipes. On the menu are beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, and grubs of many kinds, with stories that highlight traditional methods of insect collection, preparation, consumption, and preservation. But we not only encounter the culinary uses of creepy-crawlies across many cultures. We also learn of the potential of insects to alleviate global food shortages and natural resource overexploitation, as well as the role of world-class chefs in making insects palatable to consumers in the West.

Excerpt from Illinois State Museum of Natural History: General Guide This volume is intended to serve as a general introduction to the collections of the Illinois State Museum. The work of preparing it has involved considerable investigation since although the museum has been in existence for sixty-three years and contains more than a hundred thousand specimens, no work of this kind has been previously attempted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.