National Parks

Discover the rich history of America's national parks with essential titles selected by RCL editors. Resources for College Libraries (RCL) features 90,000+ core titles for academic libraries, curated by Choice/ACRL subject specialists and available at rclweb.net.

Updated September 23, 2025
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America's Largest Classroom : What We Learn from Our National Parks
Thompson, Jessica L.
Ebook
Over the past 100 years, visitor learning at America's national parks has grown and evolved. Today, there are over 400 National Park Service (NPS) sites, representing over eighty million acres. Sites exist in every US state and territory and are located on...
National parks : the American experience
Runte, Alfred
Paper Book
In this lavishly illustrated book well-known environmental historian Alfred Runte, a prominent figure on the Ken Burns documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea, tells the highly engaging story of the development of our national parks, from the first national park, Yellowstone, to the more...
Desert solitaire : a season in the wilderness
Abbey, Edward
Paper Book
Hailed by The New York Times as "a passionately felt, deeply poetic book," the moving autobiographical work of Edward Abbey, considered the Thoreau of the American West, and his passion for the southwestern wilderness. Desert Solitaire is a collection of vignettes...
Science, Conservation, and National Parks
Ackerly, David D.
Ebook
As the US National Park Service (NPS) marks its centennial in 2016, parks and protected areas worldwide are under increasing threat from a variety of factors, including storms and fires of greater severity, plant and animal extinctions, the changing attitudes of a public that has become more...
Preserving nature in the national parks : a history : with a new preface and epilogue
Sellars, Richard West
Paper Book
This book traces the epic clash of values between traditional scenery-and-tourism management and emerging ecological concepts in the national parks, America's most treasured landscapes. It spans the period from the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 to near the present, analyzing the...
Yellowstone : the creation and selling of an American landscape, 1870-1903
Magoc, Chris J.
Paper Book
Examines the American myths and late-Victorian values behind the movement both to preserve the Yellowstone wilderness and to extract its natural resources--codifying the ultimate American landscape.
Uncertain path a search for the future of national parks
Tweed, William C.
Ebook
In this provocative walking meditation, writer and former park ranger William Tweed takes us to California's spectacular High Sierra to discover a new vision for our national parks as they approach their 100th anniversary. Tweed, who worked among the Sierra Nevada's big peaks and big trees for more...

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