thelynxiblog

So, December 31st, and all the books lying on my attic floor are still there. They have progressively accumulated since last January, and whilst I have every good intention of promoting them to their ‘proper’ place on the shelves, they remain where I first put them, in little huddles on the floor. The reason they are still resident on the carpet, where the Bad Persians spitefully spike their corners, is that I have no more room on my shelves.

I get older painlessly, endlessly absorbed with taking everything off one shelf, dusting, and believing that it will now be possible to squeeze more in than before. As I return the volumes I become distracted by something as I leaf through the pages, and time slips away as I engage with something I have owned for ages, but never focussed on before. There is then the dilemma of whether a book should be in place A, with X Y and Z, or in place B with E F and G? Should my books on Lithuanian libraries stay alone in my attic with LIS related material, or should I unite them with their natural co-habitees of books on Lithuanian places, folk tales and cuisine (currently downstairs with travel, fiction and cookery respectively..)? Should my Ladybird book of ballet stay here with the other ladybird books or should I separate it from its same size siblings and put it downstairs with the other books on ballet? Maybe I should have two copies of these things..? No. Definitely no. There is no more room on my shelves.

In his book ‘The Library at Night’, Alberto Manguel devotes a whole chapter to ordering (The library as order). His dilemma in arranging his collection offers me some solace.

He writes that as a boy, he would decide:

… to place them by size so that each shelf contained only volumes of the same height.

But that

… sometimes this order would not satisfy me and I’d reorganize my books by subject: fairy tales on one shelf, adventure stories on another, scientific and travel volumes on a third, poetry on a fourth, biographies on a fifth. And sometimes, just for the sake of change, I would group my books by language, or by colour, or according to my degree of fondness for them.

Once a category is established, it suggests or imposes others, so that no cataloguing method, whether on shelf or on paper, is ever closed unto itself.

And  later, in adulthood, when creating his own library, he writes on the subjective and personal nature of the organization of private collections:

Why stash the works of Saint Agustine in the Christinianity section rather than under Literature in Latin or Early Medieval Civilizations? Why place Carlyle’s French Revolution in Literature in English rather than in European History, and not Simon Schama’s Citizens? Why keep Louis Ginzberg’s seven volumes of Legends of the Jews under Judaism, but Joseph Gaer’s study on the Wandering Jew under Myths? Why place Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho under Carson but Arthur Golding’s Metamorphoses under Ovid? Why keep my two pocket volumes of Chapman’s Homer under Keats?

Ultimately, every organization is arbitrary.

Not just me then.

Then there is LibraryThing – and the need to not only to add in all my books (scanning in the covers for the more ancient or foreign ones), but to devise a scheme to tag them all according to where they are on the shelves, and consequently to which category I feel they should belong. Although any electronic catalogue allows for the possibility of placing an item in more than one category by adding multiple tags, this does not help in my quest to create the ideal collection, in the ideal order, with all the books on the shelves. And sadly, on the topic of social networks for books, Alberto Manguel is silent.

But, dear reader, there is more to this prose than the story of how I maintain a collection of books rather than just a stash beside my bed. The truth is I collect quite a lot of things. I mean collect them rather than just happen to give them space in my house, because they are obtained specifically in relation to the other things which I possess. They are organized. I organize them. Endlessly, never to my complete satisfaction, and occasionally (designer handbags) to facilitate gloating. And there is never enough space to present my collections on the shelves and in the cupboards, in the way in which I would like.

I have been driven to contemplate my true nature as I read “An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World”, written by Frances Larson, in which she investigates his compulsion to collect just about everything. Whilst the word ‘obsessive’ is not mentioned, the negative consequences of Wellcome’s desire to collect ‘everything’ are painful to read about.

His marriage failed; his need to control not just the objects his buyers found, but  any subsequent research ideas that ensued, caused significant friction between Wellcome and his employees, and perhaps most sadly of all, he collected too much. The process of collecting overshadowed the desire to learn from, or enjoy, the things collected. Most of his collection was in storage, destined to be partially dismantled after his death.

Wellcome believed that only a complete collection would be worthy enough to display, one which would truly tell the story of the history of medicine. He believed that by arranging the items in his collection, contrasting and comparing, making connections, previously unknown facts and understanding would be revealed. But in the meantime, he died:

… Wellcome ran out of time. The story that might have emerged from all his frantic collecting – the great history ‘of the art and science of healing’ that he intended to depict through his rarities – was never finished. The collection was never exhibited en masse, polished and consistent, as he intended it to be.

Yet, perusing the fantastic legacy that is now the Wellcome Collection and Library, it is impossible to say anything other than that Henry Wellcome’s activity was worth it.

So what about my collections? Well I don’t think I collect anything with a view to having everything. I think I first thought of this when attempting to compile a list of toxicology resources for my PhD – too many even a decade ago for the most ardent of resource collectors. My approach has evolved to aspire to a representative sample of what is available (e.g. LIS books, colored frock coats and SpaceNK products). After all, there is no more room on the shelves. And I doubt that anyone will consider my collections a legacy.

But I do enjoy being organized and I naturally form collections from the things I have. I have to put like things together and take great pleasure in thinking of ways to do this. My great uncle’s bible and his stereoscope, for example, may seem unlikely shelf sharers, and yet I place them side by side in the cupboard because they are the only things of his that I posses, and so even though I have other bibles, this particular one sits alone on a box of cards intended to generate 3D images at the beginning of the 20th century.

Sometimes I discover new things from arranging the old things. Recipes for example. All the cut out ideas from magazines and newspapers could so easily sit in a heap, good for nothing except artful clutter. Yet when organised according to savoury or sweet, and even crudely subcategorized, I find a pattern in the type of food I felt drawn to, and a renewed interest in cooking something nice to eat. And then who hasn’t enjoyed making playlists from all the CDs which lay forgotten in their rack, as soon as all the tracks are loaded onto iTunes – the software arranging the random pile of sound history into something new and attractive – hateful to those who admire the concept of an entire album, but smashing for those of us who only ever liked one track anyway. And the same for photos, and papers as well as books. What about all those old letters and postcards? Is there anything that cannot become a collection? Cleaning products, the contents of the fridge, knitting patterns, crockery … mmm  I can see where Wellcome had a problem – its all so interesting, placing like things together, establishing differences, seeing what is missing, and what has previously passed unobserved.

My earliest collection was one of books by Enid Blyton – and then when I was eight, I started to collect trolls (see mimi above) – each named and dressed in clothes I designed and made myself. Easy to see where I came from.

But it is December 31st , and so before another year passes, I am going to the fridge to find cheese and champagne – and yes … the cheeses are stored according to country of origin… but no – I don’t collect champagne – I drink it as soon as it is chilled. Happy New Year. xxx

Bibliography:

Larson F (2009). An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Manguel A (2006). The Library at Night. Yale University Press: New Haven and London.

Forgetting things is annoying isn’t it? Anniversaries, names of places and people, poems, formulae, book titles, the postcode, the name of the singer and where you left the keys. Names are a nightmare. In the midst of an intellectual exposition I can recall the faces, the clothes and when/where we last met but the white bubble above the head where the name should be remains tauntingly blank … the contents sneaking back at some later point in time – if I’m lucky there will be time to reassure my audience that the memory was not a fantasy, but often the forgotten monikers return hours later, when I am trying to remember something else. A better memory would save so much time – no need to re-read prose on which I have already spent hours, or to go through every CD until I find the title of the song I just can’t remember. Top of the annoying list has to be forgetting the perfect wording which drifted effortlessly into my mind an hour or so ago .. and yes, my pile of notebooks (write it down when you think of it) is now so unwieldy that I need to index them. Ha.

But help is at hand in our information society, where we co-exist alongside our digitized books, music, photos, videos, diaries, lists, contacts and ideas. Once uploaded into cyberspace all the stuff we need to remember is permanently recorded for us – just waiting to be plucked out of the ether by the right keyword. Free text indexing gives us endless points of access, a name, a place, a date or subject, can produce our media like magic. Remembered or forgotten, it is all still there, just waiting patiently. The electronic box in the attic. Even things we gave away and forgot about for decades can be retrieved from services such as Ebay, Abe Books and Amazon. The antidote to regret.

And in our work, preservation of material is often our main focus. We professionalize the art of selecting what to remember and the best way to remember it – in archives and records management, and even in libraries. The challenges of digitizing and preserving material in a society where yesterday’s format is something you were using this morning, are things we thrive on. We are keeping the past alive for the future.

And yet … something about this permanent, digital shoebox has troubled me for about a year now – since I began uploading myself into the ether, in fact; I mean – how long does this digital shadow trail after us? Well forever duh…. even when we die. Not a new worry, and of course, not a new answer, but I am prompted to write after listening to Vicktor Mayer-Schonberger talking about his book “Delete – the virtue of forgetting in the digital age“, in which he raises the question of whether there are some cases in which forgetting is better than remembering. As an aside, the book is a good read, and I recommend it to anyone taking our LAPIS module next semester.

Returning to my concerns, I think there are two facets to the wonder memory of cloud computing and USBs. The good bit is that public domain data can be preserved for everyone – the bad bit is that so can personal data. And whilst I accept that it is often hard to define what is public and what is personal (personal letters found in an attic and published after the authors death ..?) it is clear by now that much of what we hope will remain personal, is is fact, horribly public.

I have often read of how you can never delete a Facebook profile – you merely deactivate it. Is this the same for other social networking sites? A permanent record of the person you were when you were 11 ( or 35 …) – sitting there waiting to be hacked in the present or pillaged in the future?

What happens to all those primary school friends to whom you bestow complete access to what’s on your mind and in your photographs – do you starkly unfriend them (no quotes – this is a real word now) as you evolve, or do they slither after you years into another life. Remember anyone from primary school ? High school ? Are they still part of your life? (ok – with two exceptions I can say no – but then look what I grew up to be (ha again!)) The thing is that it is hard to move on when our digital shadow bites at our heels even in the dark.

Viktor raised issues of ‘amusing’ photos being retrieved to ruin someone’s career, and of seemingly buried, throwaway admissions being retrieved 40 years later to serve as a reason for being refused entry to the US. Others quickly furnished the event with perhaps more chilling examples – ever posted your undying love for someone on your social networking site ? Ever cried over the keyboard as you ‘delete’ your entire profile and start again using your middle name?

Ever conducted an affair by email ? Did it end badly ? Did you use del *.* ? Did he? It’s all still on a server somewhere isn’t it ? Maybe copied to someone’s USB. Waiting.

And to add to our woes Google keeps details of every search undertaken, and results clicked on for 9 months (this was reported at the event and I have not checked this definitively) – all linked to a specific ip address. Do you keep clicking on his website ? Sad. Worse – everyone at Google knows.

After 9 months the Google data is anonymized. But how hard is it to pinpoint someone from anonymized data if you are determined ? Hmmm.

So what’s the answer? How do you publish your fabulous lifestyle to your cohort without risking future ridicule or consequences? How can we ensure that the contents of the box in the attic remain something poignant yet personal? Do we have to self-censor all the time ? Viktor Mayer-Schonberger suggests the use of ‘expiry dates’ on electronic media, so that our past does not have to haunt us. In the meantime, dear reader, do not marry into royalty, or enter politics.

Natalie Ceeney joined our class in London yesterday to talk about how she sees the role of the modern information professional, from the perspective of the work undertaken by the National Archives at Kew, where she is currently CEO. If you are interested in facts and figures, or curious about what the archives do, their website is excellent and I won’t attempt to give my version here. Instead, I will offer a brief listing of some of the themes which arose from our session, which are relevant to all of us working as information professionals, or those hoping to in the near future.

• professional silos such as ‘librarian’, ‘archivist’, ‘information scientist’, should be dissolved/merged so information professionals see themselves as members a cohesive body – perhaps under the umbrella of ‘knowledge and information management (KIM)’
• technology has reduced the need for face-to-face consultation in many professions (e.g. most people book their own travel now) – this has implications for how information professionals work
• physical ‘library’ spaces will continue to exist, but in a different way to that which we are used to – more people centered
• choosing/selection is about content not media
• there is (still) a need for good content management – file structuring and database design – it is better if information professionals are involved in this and are technologically competent (IT literacy is important)
• the best way to keep up to date is to read a lot (yes)
• information is a political issue now – see Information Matters
• public spending is constantly under scrutiny – can information professionals offer cost savings and solve problems?
• how can we use information to change society?
• how do we define a record? (theory is important)
• we now serve everybody, not just those used to or interested in research

Not for the faint hearted who cannot appreciate change – but certainly an indication of the opportunities for those interested in a career in information – whilst printed works will continue to inspire love and devotion in many of us, the virtual world provides us with many more challenges and employment prospects …

Thanks to Natalie for her time and expertise.

.. due in February 2010 … is why this blog has languished unloved and unwritten in for a month now … i am combing the text until it gleams and satisfies the publishers (ha!) and i feel guilty taking my attention away from domain analysis even for a second (so everyone else has to love domain analysis too) … i really recommend writing a book … sitting for a year getting fat(ter) and staring out from the attic across the central line as the sun rises and sets again… constantly scanning the email and twitter for irrelevant distractions and living on white wine and pistachio nuts – what seemed like such a good subject is suddenly devoid of any words at all – relying on my pilates trainer several times a week to ensure i don’t set like a jelly … i am sooo nearly finished with this book … v grateful to chris urquhart for her beta reading and supportive comments ..

A valuable, early morning session with colleagues, arranged by Sue Hill in Borough Market’s Roast restaurant. Sue regularly arranges breakfast meetings and lunchtime sessions in support of her chosen charity Clic Sargent Cancer Care for Children.

I joined Sue and 9 other colleagues to discuss current factors exerting their influence on information management – we considered the role of CILIP in the light of other groups such as: BIALL, SLA, SCONUL, SCIP, National Council of Archives and RMS. Questions along the lines of: “who joins CILIP, and what do they gain?” drew inconclusive answers, as did the question of “what should CILIP’s manifesto for the next election contain?” Perhaps too early in the day to come up with answers but certainly the questions are good ones.

“What has the biggest impact on your work right now?” elicited an easier flow of conversation – the list below outlines the issues we toyed with:

- who manages the information team ? accountants?
- doing more with less
- coping with the recession
- realism
- communication
- enthusiasm
- diversification
- people still like printed copy
- quiet spaces for school children to do their homework away from tvs
- does anybody read these days?
- if you don’t read will you ever be able to write ?
- does Amazon only want to sell best sellers? (what about the long-tail – selling idiosyncratic items to single buyers … )
- Google book deal (or not ..)
- bringing folks out of retirement because no body fills the posts ..

Again – more questions than clear answers.

And finally, “what would you do if you were not in your current job?”

- just the same thing
- teaching
- law
- police work
- voluntary work

- ballet dancer … (me).

Meanwhile: if you are a foodie try Borough Market – and if you are a foodie looking for a restaurant try Roast.

“Desultory reading is indeed very mischievous, by fostering habits of loose,
discontinuous thought, by turning the memory into a common sewer for
rubbish of all thoughts to float through, and by relaxing the power of attention,
which of all our faculties most needs care, and is most improved by it. But a
well-regulated course of study will not more weaken the mind than hard
exercise will weaken the body; nor will a strong understanding be weighed
down by its knowledge, any more than oak is by its leaves, or than Samson
was by his locks. He whose sinews are drained by his hair, must already be a
weakling.

Above all, in the present age of light reading, that is of reading hastily,
thoughtlessly, indiscriminately, unfruitfully, when most books are forgotten as
soon as they are finished, and very many sooner, it is well if something
heavier is cast now and then into the midst of the literary public. This may
scare and repel the weak, it will rouse and attract the stronger, and increase
their strength, by making them exert it. In the sweat of the brow, is the mind
as well as the body to eat its bread.”

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) Archdeacon of Lewes, theologian and German scholar
From: Books by Gerald Donaldson 1981. Phaidon, Oxford.

Trend spotting is easier said than done, but it is smugly satisfying when you get it right – purple, dim sum, and champagne bars have been some of my better predictions. I am always fascinated by the question of who sets trends? I recall reading that fashion trenders scour Camden market, sniffing out edgy cool which can be translated into Topshop merchandise. To me, everyone in Camden market looks as if they dressed in the dark in someone else’s clothes – but then maybe that’s just because my time of edgy cool was a very long time ago. Meanwhile, this season’s thigh high boots and sequined jackets were spotted way back, and I imagine everyone heading to north London is already wearing something completely different. The point about trends is that you often need to be ahead of them.

An idle search for the term “trending” on Google returns pages of hits about twitter. In this context, a trend is simply what a lot of people talk about. And I guess if you were really dedicated, you could track back to the first tweet on any subject and see who started it  – but then I still wonder what it is that gives some topics a really loud voice, whereas others fade into silent obscurity. Perhaps it is a mixture of reasons; perhaps some ideas spark mass interest randomly. Others may engender a feeling of “oh me too …” on the basis of that’s how a lot of people feel right now. Or it could be a conspiracy – someone deliberately starting and propagating a trend – “barbeque summer” for example.

From a professional stance, I am keen to understand trends in library and information science. To know what skills employers are going to value, what services our continuum of users will require, and the modes of communication. It would save a lot of time to know how to spot emerging trends –how to identify which trends will be over before Christmas – and to be able to see the difference between something which is trending (i.e. changing and being talked about) and something which has already become mainstream (sooo yesterday).

Which brings me to the trend for the convergence of library, archive and museum (LAM) services. I noticed this theme on the agenda at ALA this summer, and again in the dedicated meeting at the National Gallery, that I am writing about now. As a long-time fan of LAMs, I admit to a feeling of “oh me too…” and have therefore, in a tiny way, doubtless contributed to this particular trending being on the ascendant.

Last Thursday’s meeting at the National Gallery was on the role of librarians and archivists in museums. It was attended by around 180 people, from a wide variety of galleries, museums archives and libraries – all keen to increase awareness and use (and hence funding) of their collections by focussing on collaboration (single entry portals to shared services), digitization (scan everything and make it available over the net), indexing (how should this mix of items be described so they can be found via common portals), contributions from the public (get free helpers), and the associated regulatory issues (accuracy, copyright, data-protection and privacy, modertaion etc.). Everything information professionals love to do in fact.

Gunter Waibel (OCLC) outlined the transformation from cooperation to collaboration, published in the report “Beyond the Silos of the LAMs” (ha…) which also provided the title for the (then) upcoming CILIP executive briefing.

Digging back in time (Google search) led me to information consultancy Acumen, which, in reference to work undertaken for libraries, archives and museums stated that”

“….. since 1999, the government has tried to bring the domains of libraries, museums and archives closer together. To achieve this, they created Resource, now re-launced as MLA: the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.”

So – this trend is a government conspiracy then – and one which is still chuntering away 10 years on (see Digital Britain Interim Report – Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (MLA)) Some trends last longer than others.

The meeting  attempted to answer the question of why LAM convergence is worth pursuing, and I distilled the following from the presentations as a whole:

• To unlock the benefits of LAMs
• To support life long learning
• For research
• To help identify items and objects
• To reach new audiences
• To engage and inspire

Taken individually, some key points from the sessions are listed below:

Gunter Wailbel talked about the OCLC collaboration continuum, where we move from additive activities, (contact, cooperation and co-ordination) to transformative activities (collaboration and convergence). Transformative activities being exemplified by:

• Access to Smithsonian photograph collection on Flickr commons

• Single point of access to all Smithsonian collections; information for staff and single point of entry access to all public digital collections

“Projects may fail but visions provide the context in which obstacles can be overcome.”

Ruth Crumey (National Archives) talked about the issues around both choosing a wiki and subsequently allowing the public to add their contributions (Your Archives) – some good (i.e. great input), some harder to address (varied content, issues of accuracy, length, what is it related to, copyright, moderation).

Digitization and indexing (LCSH) of the holdings (naval logs, diaries, photographs, films) at the National Maritime Museum was discussed by Eleanor Gaune and Fiona Romeo. They talked about the new space and opportunities for increased reader accommodation offered by the new Sammy Ofer Wing, and the plans to offer wi-fi.  Interest in finding new partners to support the work raised the problem of commercial involvement with public records, which of course, need to remain accessible by the public. Regulatory issues again. And also the use of Flickr as a platform for photos and the need for volunteers to help with describing items.

From the perspective of “is professional training meeting the changing needs of LAM convergence”, the excellent and logical Nicola Franklin from Sue Hill Recruitment asked the fundamental question of whether, in fact, the ‘new services’ envisioned actually demanded new skills.

• Are our skills enough?
• What training is available (City University’s IMCS course …)
• Is there a gap?
• If so, how can we address it ?

She pointed out that from looking at employers requirements, nobody mentioned web2.0 skills per se, but that skills on influencing and networking (not covered well in university courses on the whole) were mentioned, along with skills such as photoshop and web design, and collections management.

To conclude, I think this trend is not yet mainstream, and it is worth considering how information professionals can best be equipped for working in the (very pleasant!) environment of museums, archives and galleries, alongside libraries and other organisations. Those of you interested in this area should look out for papers describing projects involved with access to LAM collections.

This photograph is of another, unrelated trend; that of posing on an empty plinth for everyone to watch you. Somebody, I guess will have to archive all these guys.

Related Reading:

The Research Information Network:  http://www.rin.ac.uk

Hedegaard R (2004). The benefits of archives, libraries and museums working together: a Danish case of shared databases. New Library World 105(7/8) 290-296

Ramachandran R (2001). A regional approach towards organisational re-invention. Library Review 50(7/8) 374-376

.. I have been grappling over the summer with not only the meaning of “French theory”, but the specific relevance of Deleuze and Guattari’s “rhizome model” to information organisation – the point of which is that I can never be more than 2cm  away from the dictionary because I get stuck on every single word – it is like learning to read all over again. This is really another story as this post is about “socialnomics” – this word came to me from a tweet, twittered by a celebrity chef – again another story – referencing a  video – “Social Media Revolution“. It is rather good – telling us in a succinct 4.23 minutes what most of us feel in our bones – that stuff finds us now, and that there is increasingly nowhere to hide – stuff has a purpose – it wants us to buy it. Like it or not, social media communications make up the better part of the air that we breathe, and we cannot pretend that they will go away. As information professionals we need to work with how people communicate – which has implications for our courses, and for the sort of skills today’s information professionals need. Sooooo – what is “socialnomics” ? Try “How social media transforms our lives and the way we do business” – from Erik Qualman’s blog socialnomics.net, which describes his new book, on errr – socialnomics.. The word is not in my 1993 (eek!) edition of Chambers Dictionary, and if you search Wikipedia, it returns Erik Qualman’s page, with a reference to his book. So perhaps today, I am not so far behind for my vocabulary test. … although a  Google search dumped 37,800 hits on to my screen … A small aside is that there is a very similar term “socionomics” which appears to refer to the “science of history and social prediction” “correlating social mood trends to music, sports, corporate culture, peace, war and macroeconomic trends” (www.socionomics.net). So many new words. So little time before next semester …

.. what is information science ?

I attempt an explanation in the latest issue of the Journal of Documentation ..

Robinson L (2009). Information science: communication chain and domain analysis. 65(4) 578-591

Many of you will be familiar with London’s Kew Gardens, but I am keen to draw attention to the fantastic herbarium (classified collection of preserved plants), and the wonderful botanical library, with its collection of art and archive, which are perhaps less well known. In fact, Kew do not often publicize their extensive library, due to lack of reading space – an issue which will be alleviated by the imminent move of the library to its new building within the new herbarium complex, which will provide more space for holdings, and seating for 30 readers. Anyone with a legitimate reason will be allowed access. Kew does run tours of these lovely collections however – they currently cost 5.00 GBP per person, and you need to book in advance as places are limited to 10 –  if you have a couple of hours to spare I urge you to go along.

Kew Gardens Hunter House

We began outside Hunter House, where the library began its formal life in 1852, when the Reverend William A. Bromfield bequeathed his herbarium and well-chosen library of about 600 volumes to Kew.

Kew Gardens New Herbarium Complex

Around the corner, is the new herbarium and library complex, which will open soon and provide much needed extra space and facilities. I am always content to know that every collection outgrows its space – not just mine ..

Victorian Herbarium

The new complex is linked in to Hunter House,  which was itself extended several times.  We  wandered through the vast, victorian herbarium (1853), with its fine cabinets and tables, designed to house the 7 million examples of preserved plant and fungi materials. Each specimen is identified, labelled, dried and mounted on card before being stored. Huge piles of examples were lying on tables, waiting to be processed. Specimens not suited to mounting on card are stored in jars of preservative. Of the collection, there are 350,000 “type specimens” – some dating back to the eighteenth century. These are the original specimens on which new species descriptions have been based, and they define the exact species name and provide standards for taxonomy and systematics of plants and fungi. The herbarium contains the collections of many well known scientists, including Charles Darwin and David Livingstone. Around 30,000 new specimens are processed each year. The herbarium supports research, and works with customs specialists to formally identify plant material coming into the UK – one area of expertise is in the identification of plants used in chinese medicine – sometimes, in dried form, it is difficult to be sure what materials really are, and this can have consequences if they are used in medicines of any kind. The Kew Herbarium collection is worldwide, in comparison to other herbaria, where the focus is on a particular type of material or locality.

We moved on to the digitization section – an innocuous room filled with PCs and large scanners. Here a team of around 20 people work on creating the electronic herbarium catalogue, containing high resolution images of the specimens. Each team member aims to create around 100 records each week (image plus data transcribed from original labeling), so the size of the project, supported by the Mellon Foundation, is considerable – with only 7 million to process. … the catalogue can be accessed from Kew’s website by anyone and saves many the need to spend on travel to London (alas for them …). I tried searching for Darwin’s specimens – lovely clear images  - and another way to spend hours in cyberspace – and I am not even a botanist …

Then on to the mounting room – here the specimens are laid out and glued down to the card, pressed slightly by sandbags to ensure they stick. The cards are lovely in themselves – reminding me of making collages for the long lost topic of ‘nature studies’ in primary school. When finished, they are sent to the herbarium for storing.

Herbarium - specimens awaiting collection

Herbarium - mounting room

Herbarium - finished mounts

And finally to the library, which I mentioned is moving from its current location, which opened in 1969, to the new complex over the summer 2009. The library “contains more than half a million items, including books, botanical illustrations, photographs, letters and manuscripts, periodicals, biographies and maps.”  (Kew Library website 13/8/09). There are some lovely things amongst this collection and my images show some of the earliest books, with their hand painted illustrations, (florilegiums). The art of botanical illustration is still alive and thriving, as the human eye captures detail, and regard for the subject, in a way that a camera never can. A modern florilegium of the plants in Highgrove gardens has recently been published at a cost of 11,ooo GBP … there is one in the Kew Library – but I wasn’t allowed to touch it.

Tractatus de Herbis - Ortus sanitatis c1490

Hortus Sanitatis 1491

Letter from Hooker to Darwin 1848

For further reading see: Ward M and Flanagan JF (2003). Portraying plants: illustrations collections at the royal botanic gardens, Kew. Art Libraries Journal 28(2) 22-28.

(.. my photos were taken without flash and with permission)