BU Sciences Collection

The Montpellier Institute of Botany Collection

The fund

In 1889, seven university institutes were established in Montpellier, including the Institute of Botany, which was inaugurated in 1890. Located inthe Jardin des Plantes, it enabledCharles Flahault, its first director, to bring the various university herbariums together in a single location. In 2000, the Institute—which, in addition to the herbariums, possessed a rich reference library but no longer had sufficient human or financial resources to continue managing them—entrusted these collections to the University Library of Sciences.

Contents:
Botany and related subjects (meteorology, physics, chemistry, medicine, natural sciences), from the^{16th century}to the year 2000 (monographs, periodicals, and theses). The Flahault Collection (photographic plates and prints) is also part of these collections, which currently occupy 500 linear meters in our storage facilities.

The Dunal Fund

Dunal (Michel-Félix), 1789–1856:
The son of a banker, he decided to pursue a career in medicine and, above all, botany, which became his favorite field of research. He served as acting chair of botany at the Faculty of Medicine duringDe Candolle’s absence (until 1829) and as director of the Jardin des Plantes (1819). A professor at the Faculty of Sciences in Montpellier in 1829, he became its dean until his death in 1856. His collections are preserved in the Herbarium of the Faculty of Sciences and the University Science Library. His research focused particularly on mycology and the Solanaceae family; he continued the work begun by De Candolle and collaboratedwith Toussaint-François Node-Véran onthe creation of the collection known as the Node-Véran parchments, preserved at the University of Montpellier.

Content:
A valuable resource for the history of botany in Montpellier, this is the working library of an early^19th-centurybotanist. The oldest volumes in this collection date from^{the 16th century}, while the most recent ones date from the^{mid-19th century}. It reflects the importance of networking for botanists at that time, as well as the importance of document sharing within the discipline, as evidenced by the dedications from Dunal’s correspondents.

The Sète Marine Biology Station Collection

The Sète Marine Biology Station was founded in 1879 at the instigation of Armand Sabatier (1834–1910); in 1884, the city provided researchers with a facility that began to accommodate a growing number of students and researchers, making it necessary to construct the current building, which was inaugurated in 1896. It houses research laboratories, an aquarium, a photography lab, and a very extensive library, as well as collections housed in a museum (shells, fish, etc.). Following a major administrative reorganization, the library’s collections were transferred to the University Library of Sciences.

Content:
Marine zoology, marine environments.

The Pierre Jeanjean Fund

Pierre Jeanjean (1789–1862):
He began his career as a chemistry lab assistant under Professor Anglada. He was then appointed preparator (or curator) of the natural history collections, a position he held from 1825 to 1862, during which time he was responsible for expanding and managing the Faculty’s educational collections. Upon his death, he bequeathed his library, which was rich in works on zoology and medicine.

Content:
Zoology, human or animal anatomy.

The Joseph-Diez Gergonne Collection

Joseph Diez Gergonne (1771–1859):
A professor of mathematics and philosophy at the École Centrale de Nîmes, he became a professor of astronomy at the Faculty of Sciences in Montpellier (1816–1836) and later of physics (until 1844). Dean of the faculty from 1820 to 1830, he became rector of the Montpellier Academy from 1830 to 1844. He is known for launchingthe Annales, known as Gergonne’s Annales, the first mathematics journal of international scope, in which he published more than 200 articles.

Contents
Gergonne left the Faculty of Sciences with works from his research library (currently being cataloged) and three boxes of manuscripts: scientific correspondence and lecture notes on various topics.

The Charles Flahault Collection

The collection entrusted to the Science Library in 2000 includes a collection of photographic plates and prints that he had commissioned from photographer friends to illustrate his fieldwork. The entire collection held at the Science Library has been digitized.

Charles Flahault (1852–1935):
A botanist appointed director of the newly established Montpellier Institute of Botany in 1889, Charles Flahault left a lasting mark on the history of botanical education. Throughout his career, he worked to reforest the Aigoual, and bequeathed a very large portion of his personal library to the library of the Institute of Botany.
Slideshow on Charles Flahault

Contents:
Botany, daily life, forest environments, rural history.