Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

                        Charlotte Tancin, Librarian & Research Scholar                      Gary Link, Chris Nettrour, John Grossman,

                        of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation                     Autumn Gollob-McGinnis, and Therese McShea

                                                                                                                       (Preston Shimer was also with us but left shortly

                                                                                                                        before this picture was taken)     

            Our tour of  the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University on Wednesday afternoon, March 24th was really incredible!  The archives there is one-of-kind, filled with a literary treasures of information about anything having to do with plants (mostly botany).  Charlotte Tancin, Librarian & Senior Research Scholar, was our tour guide.  Our group was a small one.  We wished more of you could be with us for this special opportunity to see this fascinating archives!  Charlotte was a wonderful hostess to us.  She told us all about the history of the Hunt Institute, its mission and goals for the present and future, and showed us some very old hand-made, and antique printing press books from the 1400's through the 1700's dedicated solely to describing plants and their function.  We also saw books made in more present times.  The artwork and dedication of the people who drew the plants and described their processes by writing elaborate books about them was truly awesome.

        The Library there identifies, acquires, conserves, catalogues, and provides access to published materials relating to botany and its history, with an emphasis on systematics.  Known for its collection of historical works on botany, the Library is a non-circulating research collection consulted by the Institute's staff, visiting scholars and the public.  The collection features 28,000 books and other botanical publications that date from the late 1400's and focus on the development of botany as a science and includes modern taxonomic monographs, floristic works and serial titles in the plant sciences.

        The collections include:

        * Early herbals and taxonomic works

        * Early horticultural works

        * Early florilegia

        * Color plate books from the 17th, 18th, and 19 centuries

        * Accounts of travel and exploration relating to plant discovery

        * Books of and about botanical art and illustration

        * Books on the history of botany

        * Floras from all over the world

        * Selected taxonomic works

        * Important publications in the history of botany from the 16th to the early 19th centuries

        * Selected works in medical botany, economic botany, landscape architecture, and a number of other plant-related topics