The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Library was founded in 1977 at the Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies (CBCES) to support the Center’s research and education programs. The CBCES was renamed the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in 1986 upon the closing of the Smithsonian Radiation Biology Laboratory (SRBL) in Rockville, MD and the partial merging of staff and collections.