Research: Topics: Environment: Preliminary Guide to Environmental Sources
Preliminary Guide to Environmental Sources
Introduction
About this Guide
This guide provides an overview of records relating to environmental affairs currently held in archives, libraries, historical societies and governments around New York State. It is a work in progress.
In it you will find descriptions of the environmental records we have discovered so far through online searches of the statewide Historic Documents Inventory (HDI), the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN), the general schedules for local governments, Excelsior (the online catalog of the New York State Archives and State Library), and World Wide Web sites.
This finding aid is being released during the course of the Environmental Affairs component of the New York Heritage Documentation Project, which is developing a plan that will provide guidance to individuals, organizations, and government agencies working to preserve the extraordinarily rich documentation of the environment and environmental concerns in New York. As the plan is implemented, more documentation will become available to researchers of all kinds, from scholars, community organizers, and policy makers, to community and family members and citizen activists.
We hope that this guide will encourage further efforts to locate and make available additional archival resources that document environmental affairs in New York.
You can help us by letting us know about environmental documentation not identified within this guide. If you know of historical records, whether in a repository or still held by an organization or individual, please contact us:
New York State Archives
Cultural Education Center 9C71
Albany, NY 12230
E-mail: dhs@mail.nysed.gov
Phone: (518) 474-6926
Environmental Affairs in New York State
The New York Environmental Heritage Documentation Project is examining the relationship, past and present, of humankind to the natural environment in New York. This vast topic includes the utilization of natural resources (air, energy, plants, animals, minerals, land, and water), their conservation and related environmental issues, the effect of environmental hazards on human populations and other life forms, and the development and implementation of public policy and planning related to the environment. Important components may include research in environmental sciences and public health; organizations established to promote environmental conservation, preservation, and increased awareness of environmental affairs through education, advocacy, or public action; industries, businesses and organizations which make direct use of natural resources or respond actively to environmental issues, and individuals prominent in environmental affairs. Also important are environmental impacts upon or actions by population groups, by economic class, cultural background, or region.
