EBHL May 23-24, 2002 Annual Meeting Report |
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The 9th EBHL meeting was hosted by the Royal Horticultural Society (England) on 23-24 May 2002. |
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The first part of the meeting was held on May 23rd at Wisley Garden. |
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Introductory remarks and a welcome were given by Simon Thornton-Wood , Head of Science, Advice and Libraries, and our host Brent Elliott, RHS Librarian and Archivist. |
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A business meeting was conducted in the morning. Reports were given by three new attendees: Charlotte Tancin, from Hunt Institute in Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S. and representing CBHL; Nathalie Charrier-Arrighi, from the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France; and Jane Keightley, from Pershore Library at Pershore & Hindlip College, Pershore, UK. |
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As a new attendee and a representative of CBHL, I had been asked to report on Hunt Institute as well as on CBHL, and I also added a brief note on the status of the Linnaeus Link project. For the Hunt Institute section of my report, I talked about the origins of Hunt Institute and about our collections and programs, and Nathalie Charrier-Arrighi and Jane Keightley gave similar reports about their libraries. For the CBHL section, I reported on some of what had been discussed during our Annual Meeting in San Francisco in April: recent expansion of the Annual Literature Award, strategies for increasing the number of members' papers at annual meetings, surveys of nonbook collections held by member libraries, possible XVII International Botanical Congress (Vienna, 2005) involvement in collaboration with EBHL, the new CBHL website to be unveiled in Montreal, and the ongoing, overall importance of information sharing in CBHL via the Newsletter, website, online distribution list, and annual meetings. |
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Following these reports, EBHL Secretary Raymond Clarysse told us that EBHL now has 92 members from 23 European countries. A list of new affiliate members from CBHL was also circulated. The Treasurer's report was given by Cees Lut and accepted by a representative of the audit committee; Cees is now looking to turn over the Treasurer's job to another member. |
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The EBHL/CBHL affiliate membership arrangement was introduced for discussion prior to voting on it, and was then formally and unanimously approved. |
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Next year, the EBHL meeting will be held in Zabreb, Croatia on 15-16 May 2003. In 2004 EBHL will meet in Dublin, Ireland; in 2005, in Vienna, Austria around the time of the IBC; and in 2006, in Tallinn, Estonia. |
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President Jane Hutcheon noted that she had contacted CBHL [now Past] President Susan Fugate regarding a collaborative program at the IBC in 2005. She is willing to organize a program, and has already received some expressions of interest by EBHL members who might like to present a paper. Jane also noted that EBHL would like to produce a membership brochure.
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News and announcements: |
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Roger Mills gave an update on CHIPS, and is setting up a parallel group for forestry libraries.R. Viane from Belgium talked about the Ghent Floralies / KLMP. Gabriele Popp from Kew noted that the Kew library catalogue should be up sometime next year; they are using Sirsi's iLink. Jane Hutcheon hopes that the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh's catalog will go up this summer. Cathy Broad from the Linnean Society noted that they will install Heritage OPAC software in July. |
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Following the business meeting, we heard three papers. Simon Thornton-Wood gave an update on the proposed international database of nursery catalogues. The database would include information on size and extent of holdings, lists of nurseries, institutional and contact information, and would show both summary holdings and more detailed information. He suggests beginning the project as a devolved system using common format and guidelines. The data may be made available through the RHS horticultural databases <www.rhs.org.uk/databases/summary.asp>.After lunch and a group photograph taken outdoors. Dr. Ian Christie-Miller talked about watermark imaging and paperprints: uses for scholarship and security. He has developed a system by which one can pass light through paper, capturing the watermark and then storing it as an image in a database. The system uses a "lightsheet" plus a set of reflectors, and sample results are described on the web at < www.earlypaper.com>.EBHL webmaster Ingrid Skoglund then talked about web technology and about the EBHL website < www.ub.gu.se/Gb/ebhl/home.htm>. She described the basic construction of a website, with emphasis on issues like graphics and linking, demonstrating examples from the EBHL and also the CBHL websites. |
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Later that afternoon some of us attended the William T. Stearn memorial event hosted by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where a handful of short papers were delivered on various aspects of the life and work of Stearn.We then returned to Wisley for a tour of the garden, a reception on the terrace and the banquet at the Wisley Restaurant. The food, wine and companions were all superb.
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On Friday, May 24th, the meeting moved to the Lindley Library of the Royal Horticultural Society at Vincent Square in London. The morning began with a visit to the Westminster Abbey Library and Gardens. Then we went to Vincent Square for a continuation of the EBHL conference, where we heard four more papers. Roger Mills spoke on the Flora Graeca Project, which will improve access to Oxford's finest botanical treasure, John Sibthorp's Flora Graeca (London, 1806-1840). This project will form part of the Oxford Digital Library <www.odl.ox.ac.uk> and the images will be fully cataloged in Oxford's online catalog <library.ox.ac.uk>. At one point, Mills suggested that botanical and horticultural libraries should consider collaborating on some sort of digitizing clearinghouse to track what's being digitized. |
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Lennart Hultin spoke on the origin and historical background of the German xylothek, which is a collection of simple pieces of wood specimens placed together in some kind of cupboard, such as a storage container made of bark-covered wood in the shape of a hollow book, inside which the specimens from and documentation about that tree or shrub are stored. Hultin showed slides of several collections of xylotheks, looking like shelves full of bark-covered books representing the various trees found growing in the region. |
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Cees Lut proposed a survey of old seed catalogs and seed lists. He said that a publication containing descriptions of all the new taxa that have appeared in the European 19th-century seed lists would be very useful. None of the libraries has a complete set of such seed lists, and collecting this information would fill a gap and be useful in studies of nomenclature and the history of horticulture. The format he's currently thinking of using is that of King and Dawson on Cassini's complete works on Compositae. |
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Finally, Malcolm Beasley spoke on interpreting visitor statistics to see if they show a possible decline in library use. At the Botany Library of the Natural History Museum in London, visitor numbers are down from the previous year, and he has been wondering how to interpret this, as he and his staff seem as busy as ever, if not more so. Although visitor numbers have decreased, the number of inquiries from off-site continues to rise. Now he is trying to track the number of visitor hours, in addition to the number of visitors. It was suggested that many visitors now check online catalogs in advance of visiting, and some visits are eliminated that way, and so Malcolm wondered whether statistics might also be kept on OPAC use and whether they could be used to help to interpret visitor statistics. |
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A buffet lunch in the general reading room of the library followed, and then we were treated to a tour of the Lindley Library < www.rhs.org.uk/libraries/index.asp> and a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show.The library tour was excellent, and included collection highlights and online catalog and database demonstrations. The flower show was totally amazing and it was exciting to see it. Later, a group met for dinner at a Greek restaurant.
On Saturday there were several tours available , and Brent Elliott invited interested attendees to his home for a light dinner. |
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There are numerous opportunities for information sharing at many levels at these annual meetings. During our several days together in England, attendees spoke together about botanical libraries, the book market, digitizing of information and images, collection maintenance, online catalogs, rare books, database building, portrait collections, and other subjects. The discussions and networking were quite valuable and we all returned to homes and work having met new friends along with old ones, having made important professional connections, and having had our brains filled with ideas. It was a very good meeting. |
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Charlotte (Chuck) Tancin , Hunt Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S. |