Wilson Alwyn Bentley (1865-1931), famous for his photomicrographs of snow crystals, prepared sets of glass lantern slides of dew, frost and ice crystals. Many of these sets found their way to colleges and universities around the United States. The University of Wisconsin's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences donated their collection to the Schwerdtfeger Library in 2000. Shortly after, the Library obtained partial funding through the Friends of the Libraries, University of Wisconsin-Madison, to preserve the physical collection and provide web access.

This on-line collection was originally released in May 2002.