digitized botanical literature

[Karen Wilson]

That is a very useful exercise, Lauren. 

It may not overlap much with what you are planning to cover, but there
is another website that has digitised old botanical literature (many in
Latin or French): Gallica, at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France:
http://gallica.bnf.fr

It's an extraordinarily valuable site, and has added many works
recently, including many more in English, e.g. Asa Gray's Manual of the
Botany of the Northern USA and Britton's Flora of Bermuda. From what
I've checked, it seems to have digitised the entry from TL2 for many of
the botanical works, and that entry displays before you get to the
digitised pages (pdfs) of the actual work - very helpful in checking the
bibliographic history of a work. 

The site is in French, but they are adding English and Spanish versions.
For those who don't know French, click on 'Recherche' on the main page
to get a query form allowing you to query on title, author or keywords. 

Another useful site is
http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/bibliography/index.htm which has an
'ANALYTIC BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ON-LINE NEO-LATIN TITLES' compiled by Dana
Sutton from UCal, Irvine (the site is actually at the University of
Birmingham, UK). It  provides URLs for digitized 'neo-Latin' texts (e.g.
Robert Brown's Prodromus Fl. Novae Hollandiae) on a range of other
websites including Gallica. 


Karen Wilson

 ****************************************
Karen L. Wilson
Special Botanist
National Herbarium of NSW 
Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney
Mrs Macquaries Road
SYDNEY  NSW 2000,  AUSTRALIA

Botanic Gardens Trust is part of NSW Department of Environment &
Conservation
Phone: +61-2-9231 8137
Fax: +61-2-9241 2797
Email: karen.wilson at rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au 



-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom Discussion List [mailto:TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU] On
Behalf Of Lauren Raz
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 8:00 AM
To: TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: digitized botanical literature


Dear list members,
 
We are considering digitizing a small portion of our library in order to
create backup versions of otherwise irreplaceable books. This measure is
being considered as part of a disaster plan, although we recognize that
there are many potential applications for the data once it is digitized.
Our priorities for digitization include some of the older literature on
palms, and on the West Indian flora. 
 
Before we start, I want to make sure we are not duplicating efforts
elsewhere.  I know that NY, MO, and US currently have efforts underway
to image some of their rare book holdings.  I would be interested in
hearing from people at other herbaria/natural history museums to learn
what titles you are digitizing (especially floras).  Or if you know of
any websites where digitized natural history titles are indexed, that
info would also be helpful. 
 
Thanks in advance for your input .
 
-Lauren
 
Lauren Raz
Assistant Keeper of the Herbarium (FTG)
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden
Center for Tropical Plant Conservation
11935 Old Cutler Road
Coral Gables (Miami), FL 33156
tel: 305-667-1651 x. 3418
fax:305-665-8032
email: lraz at fairchildgarden.org
www.virtualherbarium.org
 


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