The Daily Bulletin Archive

By Tony Astran

Buffalo State’s Science Teaching Center, located in the basement of the Science Building, houses a one-of-a-kind collection that is beginning to attract attention from international scholars. The Donald L. Birdd Historic Science Education Curriculum Library chronicles the development of science teaching curricula in the United States from the early 1800s to the present day. The collection contains some 6,000 textbooks, many of them quite rare.

The library is named for Donald L. Birdd, professor emeritus of earth sciences and science education, who retired last year after a 23-year career with Buffalo State. Birdd is credited with extraordinary efforts to preserve materials that would otherwise have been discarded, but he insists the library is not “his.”

“The collection is really a credit to a lot of people, particularly highly involved leaders from Buffalo State who helped shape national curricula,” Birdd said. “When I arrived on campus, it was clear to me, upon seeing the materials on hand, that this was a collection that could not reach the trash barrel.”

The Birdd Library includes textbooks, journals, posters, and multimedia. Catherine Lange, assistant professor of earth sciences and science education, began the painstaking process of documenting and organizing materials shortly after joining Buffalo State in 2007. Together with Birdd and Michele Parente, instructional support specialist for earth sciences and science education, she has neatly categorized the books by subject and type, and maintains an ongoing list online.

Lange said scholars from the international community have begun to take notice of the rare materials available, and some have borrowed books for research projects. She points to the post-Sputnik era of the 1960s as an impetus for the accumulation of materials.

“After Sputnik launched, the U.S. responded by placing more emphasis on K–12 science and math classes, and revisited curricula and materials,” she said. “Buffalo State professors such as Joyce Swartney, Robert Davitt, James Orgren, and Robert Horvat all played a role in developing national curricula.”

Birdd said he was one of the first teachers to use new materials in 1960s when he taught high school students. Lange credits him for recognizing the importance of preserving materials and for collecting textbooks from local schools. “The collection displays the history of our discipline, how we developed pedagogy, and also how Buffalo State played a role in shaping national policy,” she said. “No one has a collection this expansive anywhere in the world, and I think its value is just beginning to be realized.”

Lange said students find materials in the Birdd Library helpful—especially graduate students who must take a curricular trends course in order to earn a master’s degree in science education.

For now, Birdd Library materials are housed in various locations throughout the Science Teaching Center, including rooms 100, 103, 127, and 133. Once the science and mathematics complex is constructed, all the materials will be housed there. Birdd also has more books at his residence to add to the collection.

Lange said a dedicated space for the Birdd Library will help to better secure the collection. Her goal is to get books into the Library of Congress.

“We’re pretty lucky to have this collection here on campus,” she said. “This part of our identity as an institution is something we can be proud of. The collection reflects with pride on our intellectual heritage.”

Birdd said he’s glad he held on to so many materials and thinks they provide students and scholars with a rich sense of history.

“It’s important to have an understanding of where we came from, before we plot where to move ahead,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re bound to repeat ourselves.”