Kelley Woolley remembers visiting San Diego Zoo and its Safari Park as a kid. The big cats, giraffes, and koalas were often her first stops. She recalls watching elephants do tricks and riding the now-closed monorail, which offered great views of the tiger habitat.
“I’ve been a huge animal person my whole life,” Woolley says. Today, she oversees the library and archive for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA), the nonprofit that runs the zoo and park. Her workplace is one of a handful of zoo libraries across the US that employs a full-time librarian.
SDZWA’s 16,000-item library comprises books, scientific journals, and databases organizing everything from keeper journals (animal caretakers’ notes) to studbooks (journals published by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums documenting the lineage of different species).
“The majority of the collection is to help the veterinarians, animal care scientists, researchers, scientists, horticulturists—all the different areas of the entire organization,” Woolley explains. “The focus is to make sure we have information for everybody to use,” from staff members to volunteers to visiting scholars.
SDZWA’s archive includes rare books and materials, including founding documents, oral histories, and personal items from the zoo’s past notable leaders, like founder Harry Wegeforth and Belle Jennings Benchley, the world’s first female zoo director. The collection’s oldest item is William Kirby and William Spence’s An Introduction to Entomology, or Elements of the Natural History of Insects: with Plates (1816), a drawing-filled volume that was foundational to the study of insects.
Woolley feels a sense of pride assisting experts as they further their research and care of animals.
“We’re trying to help the conservation work to keep species thriving and trying to end extinction of certain animals,” she says. “There’s excitement, there’s passion, and I feel privileged to be a part of that group.”
