Category: Library and ArchivesPage 1 of 2
Information about the collections held in the RBGE Library and Archives
Alessandra Leruste has been a Volunteer gallery assistant with Inverleith House since 2019. Alessandra has an MA in History of art from the University of Edinburgh and has her own art-writing blog. Here, Alessandra shares her experience from the afternoon of Siân Bowen’s micro-conference at RBGE.
Klaudia Jaworska is in her third year at Edinburgh Napier University, studying International Festivals and Events Management and Marketing. As part of her course, she is currently carrying out a work placement in RBGE’s Public Engagement Department. Here, Klaudia shares her experience from the morning of Siân Bowen’s micro-conference at RBGE.
After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing and Presencing Rare Plants marks the culmination of my four-year collaboration with the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). Having held my first solo exhibition in Scotland at Inverleith House at RBGE in 1995, it is wonderful to be able to exhibit here once again. In 2017, I was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to carry out the project. The Leverhulme Trust is known for supporting experimental proposals with an emphasis on outward facing journeys. The journey that the award facilitated has certainly been extraordinary – opening up possibilities to work with botanists, ecologists, historical researchers, cultural geographers, taxonomists and curators. It has allowed encounters with rare plants in darkened herbaria and light-filled South Indian forests and swamps; epistemologies used to ‘reveal’ specimens and sensory differences between plants’ live and preserved states.
1914-1919 The Service Roll is different from the Roll of Honour in that it shows the names & a short statement of service of all members of staff…
We Will Remember Them Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh Roll of Honour, 1914–1919 At the outbreak of war in August 1914 the appeal for H.M. Forces met with ready…
Seeds are phenomenal structures which have adapted incredible ways to disperse. One of the of the most eye catching seed pods in the garden at this time of…
The kirkyard at Fortingall in Perthshire has, for several centuries, been a magnet for tourists with an arboricultural bent – for the sake of its ancient yew. This…
Situated beneath the Memorial to the members of staff at RBGE who gave their lives during the First World War is a smaller, but no less poignant memorial…
Some of us may be lucky, or in this case, unlucky enough to experience a life altering event that comes to define us whether we want it to…
Research about Victorian botanical illustrator Anne Pratt turns into a Beatrix Potter book binding mystery… Anne Pratt was born in 1806 and, suffering from poor health as a…
Whilst helping to catalogue the library’s rare book collection for my Book History and Material Culture placement, I came across a herbal from 1586 that contained a very…
When I was contacted by Dr Bill Lynch in August 2018 with a query about a former RBGE gardener called David R. Tait and his work for Sir…
In December 1945 the world was entering its fourth month of‘peace’ after six brutal years of global war. A small sign of that ‘peace’ was the arrival in…
As 2018 nears its end, here are a couple of blogposts telling the stories behind two fern books from the shelves of the Royal Botanic Garden Library. Both…
When the museum and library of the East India Company, following its inheritance by the India Office of the British government, was dispersed in 1879 its fragments were…
By Hannah Swan In this second part of the series on interesting insertions in RBGE volumes, I will delve into the various insertions in an 1874 copy of…
Henry McBeath was from Rogart in Sutherland, born in November 1878 to James McBeath, a farm grieve (foreman) and his wife Johan from Rovie, a farm in Rogart…
By Helen Bennett, Library & Archives Volunteer New light has been shed on the creation of Logan Garden by a previously unknown album of photographs and watercolours recently…
By Hannah Swan Before publisher’s bindings were de rigueur, texts came in flimsy paper ‘wrappers’, leaving the permanent binding to the new owner. Because of this, many books from…
Andrew Ewing Calder was born in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, on the 12th January 1884 to Robert Calder, a blacksmith, and his wife Sarah Jane, who was a tailoress. Calder…