Category: Library and ArchivesPage 3 of 5

Information about the collections held in the RBGE Library and Archives

The Other Library, Archives & Photography Team

A series of posts from our volunteers … Helen Bennett A period of secondment from Scottish Arts Council in 2006 confirmed my ambition to volunteer with Royal Botanic…

The Other Library, Archives & Photography Team

A series of posts from our volunteers … Jane Gardner My name is Jane Gardner and I am retired.  I have lived in Edinburgh for nearly six years…

The Other Library, Archives & Photography Team

A series of posts from our volunteers … Brenda White – A Photography Volunteer Long ago, when the world was simple, and taking photos involved no more effort…

The Other Library, Archives & Photography Team

A series of posts from our volunteers … Simon Muirhead – Trawling through the Archive For some years I have been a member of EDFAS [Edinburgh Decorative and…

The Other Library, Archives & Photography Team

A series of posts from our volunteers … Peter Middleton I’m a retired journalist, cum corporate communications director. Ok, so I was a sort-of spin doctor working for…

The Other Library, Archives & Photography Team

A series of posts from our volunteers … Paul and Ruth Maxwell We came to be Volunteers at RBGE quite by chance in that while attending a Fine…

The Other Library, Archives & Photography Team

In March 2020, in response to the Coronavirus outbreak, the RBGE Library, Archives and Photography staff, along with most of our colleagues, found ourselves working remotely from home….

First records of British plants – three Indian connections

Henry Noltie In pursuit of interesting facts for some captions I was recently asked to write I turned to David Pearman’s fascinating account of the first records of…

Mysteries inside the RBGE Illustrations Collection

In January 2020 Manshu Xu, an MSc student at Edinburgh College of Art began a work placement in the RBGE Library that involved creating an initial finding list…

Access to Scholarly Information During the Coronavirus Closures

As with all other aspects of our lives, the Coronavirus pandemic has impacted on the scholarly communication process. With most libraries closed, a number of publishers have made…

Part 2/2: ‘Sensing and Presencing the Imperceptible’, Siân Bowen’s Micro-conference

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.

Part 1/2: ‘Sensing and Presencing the Imperceptible’, Siân Bowen’s Micro-conference

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.

Siân Bowen’s Leverhulme Research Fellowship Exhibition: After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing and Presencing Rare Plants

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.

RBGE World War One Service Roll

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…

RBGE’s World War One Roll of Honour

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…

The seeds of Dead Man’s Finger

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…

Yew trees, the Canaries and a Darwinian Connection in a Perthshire Churchyard

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…

RBGE’s World War Two Memorial

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…

A Desperate Escape – George Forrest on the run in China, July 1905

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…

The Tale of Anne and Beatrix

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…