Animals are everywhere. In nature. On our laps. In our lives. On our plates. And one may – or may not – be reading this blog post. Yet human-animal relationships remain largely unexplored. Volumes have been written about animals, but only recently have scholars studied human-animal relations: our use of animals, our interdependence, and ideas underlying the human-animal dichotomy, or prospectively beyond it.

Animals are everywhere in libraries, facilitating study of human-animal relations. University of Arizona Libraries and UA Special Collections holds books, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera which record, depict, or embody our relationships. These partnerships involve work, play, display, and consumption. Animals are also objects of inquiry, whether in themselves or as analogues for ourselves. And where animals do not fit into a relationship, they are often regarded as pests.

Find animals at work providing energy – “horsepower” is so familiar its animal origin hides in plain sight. Photographs capture animals drawing carts, pulling plows, or turning brick machines. Horses built cities, hauling materials, grading roads, and providing hair for plaster-and-lathe walls. Advertisement abounds for feed, livestock, and carts, carriages, and buggies. Browse trade journals, patents, extension reports, and manuscripts for images and ideas about our work side-by-side.

Find animals training for races, games, and pastimes, or even account of the University of Arizona’s polo team. Early books and papers describe breeding various animals for recreation. And there is no shortage of works on hunting. We even map animals as recreational objects.

Find animals on display in zoos, circuses, curiosities, and museums. Animals and animal imagery abound in art, film, and literature, or stand breathless as trophies. Ken Wolfgang’s films depict elephants, tigers, and snow monkeys. Facsimiles of bestiaries present idealized animals and the medieval universe. Children’s pop-up books are replete with animals. Bring your interest in crime fiction to The Llama of Death. Or listen to University of Arizona poet Alison Hawthorne Deming, recently awarded a Guggenheim, read aloud about butterflies.

Find animals in natural histories. See mammals depicted in a work of John James Audubon, or consider our fascination with birds in the Records of the Tucson Audubon Society. Animal intelligence and welfare are considered in philosophical works and familiar children’s stories. Or examine the legacy of Richard D. Sparks, early advocate for the welfare of captive primates.

And, of course, find animals consumed: meat, milk, fur, wool, and feathers. Consider cattle. Muse about goats, ostriches, and chickens. Consult a cookbook or consider the essential contribution of microscopic animals to fermentation. Or reflect on those who foreswear animal consumption.

Finally, find animals in your hands. Libraries consume animals. Leather for book covers. Vellum to write on. Glue and sinew for binding. Gall for ink. Quills to write. Gelatin for photographs. Libraries are alive with animals. And they exist because of them, too.

-Wendel Cox