Beyond Blooms: Exploring the Multi-Faceted Significance of Seed and Nursery Catalogs in Historical Research
| dc.contributor.author | Aults, Erin | |
| dc.contributor.author | Mehle, Jocelyn | |
| dc.contributor.author | Mastel, Kristen | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-09-05T19:59:19Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-09-05T19:59:19Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-05-06 | |
| dc.description | Presented at the USAIN/CBHL 2024 Biennial Meeting. | |
| dc.description | PDF of PowerPoint presentation. | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Historical seed and nursery trade catalog collections capture an elusive type of information. These catalogs were meant to exist no longer than a year or two, consulted heavily for a brief time and discarded once out of date. Today, librarians, archivists, and researchers view these collections as important primary source materials for numerous fields of study. While they are used primarily as a resource on the growth of ornamental horticulture and agriculture, they also serve as a portal into the social mores, political anxieties, local and national economies, the dinner table, farmer’s market, and florist shop. Whether the users are searching for the introduction of invasive plants or artists looking for inspiration, some of the challenges and opportunities for librarians remain the same. Who are the researchers and what do they want to know? What are the trends we see in the catalogs that might be overlooked by researchers? How do we better facilitate discovery and access and attract more users? What has worked and what could we do better in promoting the use of the catalogs? What does it look like in a born-digital world and the archival processes? What are the challenges that lie ahead in acquisition, outreach, use, and preservation? This presentation proposal will bring together the curators of two major collections of seed and nursery trade catalogs. These collections span four centuries, focusing on both United States and Canadian horticultural companies. The curators will discuss the questions posed above while determining a common path ahead for their collections and similar ones at similar institutions. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1813/115497 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.rights | Attribution 4.0 International | * |
| dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | * |
| dc.subject | seed and nursery trade catalogs | en_US |
| dc.subject | historical ornamental horticulture and agriculture | en_US |
| dc.subject | special collections | en_US |
| dc.title | Beyond Blooms: Exploring the Multi-Faceted Significance of Seed and Nursery Catalogs in Historical Research | en_US |
| dc.type | presentation | en_US |
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