In 2005, a team of marine biologists led by Glenn Jones of Texas A&M University used infiation-adjusted pricing data from the New York Public Library's (NYPL) collection of 45,000 restaurant menus, among other sources, to confirm the commercial overharvesting of abalone stocks along the California coast beginning in the 1920s, a sharp decline in the East Coast's inshore lobster population that began in the 1950s, and other information regarding historical stocks of swordfish, oysters, halibut, haddock, sole, and other popular seafood. This goes to show how special collections can prove useful to researchers in varied and unexpected ways. Here, a novelist peruses NYPL's unique menu collection to cook delectable dinner details into a historical mystery. There, a paleo ocean-ographer expands his field's understanding of how seafood consumption trends of the 19th and 20th centuries impacted the sustainability of modem fisheries.
展开▼
