Libraries and archives have held considerable responsibility for preserving the record of botany and botanical research. Now in the electronic age, things are changing, but the old problems and concerns are not being replaced - there are simply new ones being added. This page highlights just a sampling of preservation issues.

The images that follow, except for the CBHL logo and as otherwise noted, have been provided courtesy of the Trustees of The Natural History Museum, London, and any rights to the images as they appear on our pages are held by them. Special thanks are due to Malcolm Beasley, Botany Librarian at NHM, who provided text for the captions.

Traditional publications

This is a widely familiar preservation problem in libraries; the structures that hold books together break down and need to be replaced. Here, the Index Londinensis Supplement of 1941 suffers from misuse and wear and tear, resulting in spine damage. Note the decayed lining paper in the spine and torn cloth covers. Costly rebinding and conservation would be required to return these books to useful service. They are however, invaluable reference tools.

The pages of books can become acidic and eventually brittle. If caught in time, they can be deacidified, but once brittle, the paper breaks easily. It is generally best to simply recopy the information into another format (i.e., reformat it), such as microfilm or digitized images. Here is shown a decayed modern Russian monograph from the 1950's, awaiting microfilming and preservation. It is too brittle to use, and is an ideal candidate for digitization. Print runs have usually been small for such literature and a replacement may only be obtainable as microform.

The pages of books can become stained from inks, mold, or other substances. Sometimes this staining is so intrusive that the book is not readable. Some stains can be removed by washing, bleaching or other treatment, best performed by a conservator. It is also sometimes possible to "clean them up" in a digital copy, so that the copy is readable.

Archives and manuscripts

Letters and other manuscript items are often unique, and so need to be stored and handled with appropriate care, and stabilized through conservation when necessary. Such materials are vulnerable to dirt, decay and abrasion, among other threats. They can often be copied or reformatted, but may themselves have documentary or artifactual value that a copy would not have. Here are shown a bundle of letters from Japan and England ca.1902, concerning research into fungi. Note the generally fair condition they are still in. The folder has physically protected the documents.

Portraits can form an important record, such as this lithograph portrait of William Curtis, the Father of Botany, as he is sometimes known. Such images are quite rare, as they preceded photography and provide much useful sociological as well as scientific historical information for researchers. They also complement today's needs of multi-media projects and the careful exploitation of library and archival holdings.

Photographs are found in many collections. Photos are typically easier to copy than to restore, but sometimes they too have documentary or artifactual value in their original form. Photographic preservation is a specialist area which only a few libraries can justify making economic use of. Digitization may be an acceptable substitute for such items. Shown here is an example of the duplication of old photographic prints with slight loss of resolution and therefore data about the subject. Again, digitization can help to overcome this variation in quality of data preservation.

Shown here are examples of photographic images that a botanical library may hold. They act as a record of documents, objects and art. They are used for research, to back up conservation activities and as a substitute for the original materials.

Photo albums present special preservation challenges. Often, but not always, photographs have been glued or pasted onto acidic paper and cannot be easily removed. As with many such items, scanning can provide researchers with usable copies, relieving the original of unnecessary handling which would hasten its deterioration. Here we see threatened old photographs in late 19th century albums. The card is acidic and the photographs themselves are oxidizing; manuscript notes on the pages themselves are also at risk.

Electronic information

  New and evolving information carriers present different and difficult preservation challenges. For example, in the case of magnetic media such as tapes and disks, there are various potential causes for failure, including physical degradation and erasure of the magnetic coding. Here you can see a selection of recent and current data disks, some of which are already obsolete technology. Some are enclosures to printed works. How many of these could you read?

The Natural History Museum's Web Home Page, showing the brief index to a diverse and carefully constructed information package, freely available to Internet users around the world. Such pages themselves ought to be preserved for posterity, as part of the botanical documentary record. One such project is already underway in the USA, covering the whole of the Internet.

The opening screen of The Natural History Museum's OPAC [online public access catalogue], typical of the latest global Web research tools freely available to users of the Internet. Such research tools enhance access to collections, but also can exacerbate preservation concerns as demand for collection materials increases.

Except for the CHBL logo and as otherwise noted, images on these symposium pages were provided courtesy of the Trustees of The Natural History Museum, London, and copyright on these images is held by them.

The CBHL Symposium presented at the XVI International Botanical Congress

CBHL's Resources Assessment for Preservation and Access Committee (RAPAC)

Core Literature Project: Historical Monographs in Botanical Sciences

Glossary in preservation

Links to professional organizations and associations

Links for plant libraries and archives resources