Smithsonian: On the English naturalist’s 215th birthday, more than 9,000 titles from his expansive collection are now accessible online: “After nearly two decades of sleuthing and meticulous archival research, academics this week marked the 215th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday on February 12 with a gift for the world: the English naturalist’s complete personal library, published and made publicly available for the first time ever. A new, 300-page catalog lists some 7,400 titles across more than 13,000 books, journals, pamphlets and reviews Darwin kept in his possession. Close to 9,500 of these works have been copied and made accessible for curious readers to peruse in the digital anthology, “The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.” “This unprecedentedly detailed view of Darwin’s complete library allows one to appreciate more than ever that he was not an isolated figure working alone but an expert of his time, building on the sophisticated science and studies and other knowledge of thousands of people,” John van Wyhe, a historian at the National University of Singapore and leader of the project, says in a statement. “Indeed, the size and range of works in the library makes manifest the extraordinary extent of Darwin’s research into the work of others.” Most famous for his 1859 treatise On the Origin of Species, which details his theory of evolution, Darwin proposed that humans and animals shared a common ancestor and that species were shaped for survival through natural selection. Alongside his own publications, the new findings show Darwin kept a wide-ranging library of expansive works…”