In recent years the Historia Plantarum Collection has been accrued with donations and purchases from the collections of Smithsonian botanists Dan Nicolson (1933-2016) and Stanwyn Shetler; the late Smithsonian ethnobotanist Robert De Filipps (1939-2004); the historian of Arabic medicine Farid Haddad, curator of the Sami Haddad Memorial Library, which included manuscripts now at the Wellcome Library in London (UK); archival documentation on Greek medical manuscripts of the historian of medieval pharmacy John M. Riddle; an eclectic collection of books of art, astronomy, medicine and history, from Dr. Offie P. Soldin (1952-2014), associate professor in the Departments of Oncology, Medicine, Physiology and Obstetrics and Gynecology, Georgetown University; and a collection of monographs about archaeology of the Mayan world, part of the library of archaeologist Dr. Karl J. Lorenzen (1964-2017).

Although the collection grows constantly, you can also help by donating books.