About the Macaulay Library
The Macaulay Library is the world’s premier scientific archive of natural history audio, video, and photographs. Although the Macaulay Library’s history is rooted in birds, the collection includes amphibians, fishes, and mammals, and the collection preserves recordings of each species’ behavior and natural history. Our mission is to facilitate the ability of others to collect and preserve such recordings and to actively promote the use of these recordings for diverse purposes spanning scientific research, education, conservation, and the arts.
Access to audio and video recordings in the archive is available for research, educational, and commercial use. If you would like to contribute to the archive, you can submit your bird recordings and photos via the eBird/Macaulay Library media upload tool. Recordists with videos or non-bird recordings can contact us to discuss the possible archival of their material. New recordists can receive training at our annual sound recording workshop and learn how to become expert field recordists, or use our online resources for quick tutorials.
About the Macaulays
The Macaulay Library is named in honor of two avid birders, Linda and William (Bill) Macaulay, whose generous donation was instrumental in creating the Macaulay Library’s outstanding new home at Sapsucker Woods. This state-of-the-art facility includes custom-built studios, advanced fiber-optic connectivity, spacious offices, and climate-controlled storage for the archive.
The contributions of the Macaulays extend far beyond financial support. With nearly 6,000 individual birdsong recordings of over 2,600 species, Linda Macaulay is one of the most productive and talented contributors to the library’s sound archive and a superb example of a dedicated citizen scientist. In many cases, Linda was the first person to ever record several species in the wild and to this day over 300 of these species remain recorded only by her. Through their work with First Reserve Corporation, where Bill is the Chairman, the Macaulays have traveled to numerous hard-to-reach locales that few tourists (or even avid birders) ever see, and wherever they go they take their recording equipment along. In 2010, in honor of her many contributions, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology presented Linda Macaulay with the prestigious Arthur A. Allen Award for Outstanding Service to Ornithology.
The Macaulay Library thanks our foundation partners for their generous contributions on behalf of science and conservation. Your support is making a difference!
Additional support
