The Arthur Vining Davis Archives at Mote Marine Laboratory houses a unique collection of primary source documents on the coastal environment from the 1920s to the present. Mote’s extensive archival collections include over 800 linear feet of material representing an invaluable depiction of ecological, environmental, and socioeconomic conditions in coastal areas of southwestern Florida and the eastern United States.
Explore the Digital Repository
Some of the special archival collections available in Mote’s digital collections repository:
- Dr. Eugenie Clark Collection: World renowned ichthyologist and Mote Marine Laboratory’s founding director. This collection includes original research, lectures, field notebooks, photographs, and more.
- Mote Technical Reports: Includes 1,650 cataloged records of the technical reports produced by the Mote staff since the mid-1970s. Print copies of the reports are housed in the archives. Over 400 reports are available full-text.
- Bass Biological Laboratory Collection: 1930s and ’40s-era papers, correspondence, photographs, maps and research data from an Englewood, FL marine and biological research laboratory.
- Charles M. Breder, Jr. Collection: Renowned ichthyologist and Dr. Eugenie Clark’s mentor, this collection includes his published books and papers and handwritten field journals from the 1920s to mid-1970s.
- Dr. Perry W. Gilbert Collection: Eminent shark scholar and Mote Marine Laboratory director from 1967-1978, Dr. Gilbert guided the facility into prominence. This collection of papers, correspondence, documents, and photographs provides an insider’s view of the Perry Gilbert-era at Mote.
- Mina Walther Collection: Research books and newspaper columns of Mina Walther, biology teacher and nature writer. Ms. Walther wrote the column “Tide Lines” for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune from 1977-2003.
Additional special collections at Mote:
- Collected Papers from Mote Marine Laboratory: Contains more than 1,200+ peer-reviewed papers published by Mote staff beginning in 1957-1963 from the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory through the present. The volumes are available in the library for public review.
- Reprint Collection: Contains bibliographic records of 4,500 environmental articles, including Mote staff contributions. Titles in this collection are searchable via Mote’s library catalog.
- Marine Macroalgae Herbarium – Algae and Seagrasses Specimens Collection: More than 8000 specimens representing 327 species of algae and seagrasses. Specimens have been collected from Florida (Sarasota, Florida Keys, Florida west coast, Pinellas County, Boca Raton, etc.) as well as from Belize, Brazil, California, Cayman Islands, Connecticut, Cuba, Ireland, Maine, Mexico, New Hampshire, North Carolina (Beaufort), Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Southern Gulf of Mexico, and the US Virgin Islands.
- A portion of the collection has been digitized as part of the NSF ADBC Macroalgae Digitization Project and can be accessed through the MacroAlgal Herbarium Consortium and is recorded in the Index Herbariorum. Note: Mote’s location code is “MOT”
- Herman Gross Collection: This extensive collection of more than 30,000+ underwater slides includes color images of corals and thousands of other species of undersea life from all over the world.
- Dr. James E. Woods Collection: Biomedical books and journals with a specialty in endocrine and chick research collect by Dr. Woods, a DePaul University professor and Mote Laboratory research associate. Titles in this collection are searchable via Mote’s library catalog.
- Pauline S. Becker Collection: Floridiana books collected by one of Mote Marine Library’s most ardent volunteers and supporters. Books focus on Florida history, nature, ecology, folklore and more.
