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Brooklyn Botanic Garden 2003 Annual Report
Library
In 2003, the BBG Library played an ever-greater role on the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL), the consortium of institutions dedicated to ensuring that the accumulated knowledge about plants is accessible to present and future generations. The Garden cosponsored the CBHL's annual conference, which was held in New York City in June. Thursday, June 12, began at BBG with late-morning tours by Library staff and volunteers of the Gardener's Resource Center, Rare Book Room, Science Library, and Archives. The day ended with a tour of the Garden on a beautiful spring evening.
Director of Library Services Patricia Jonas was named chair of the CBHL Awards Committee. As a member of the committee, she helped judge 34 botanical and horticultural books for the 2003 awards, which were presented at the CBHL annual meeting. In addition, she continued to promote excellence in botanical and horticultural literature as book review editor of Plants & Gardens News.
Gina Ingoglia, Francesca Anderson, and Patricia Jonas assembled a group of 43 acclaimed botanical artists to create BBG’s Florilegium Society and mounted a stunning first exhibit of botanical drawings and paintings submitted by Society members. Featured in the exhibit was Magnolia grandiflora (below), a water color by Jessica Tchere Prine.
During the year, more than 1,758 items, including books, journals, and electronic publications, were added to the Library's collections. Despite cutbacks in staff and hours necessitated by the economy, the number of library users served was over 6,500, and 5,600 different titles were used over 16,000 times. BBG's Rare Book Room was discovered as a resource by scholars and students from the Garden History and Landscape Studies program at Bard Graduate Center. An image from the collection—a hand-colored copperplate engraving of a watercolor of the Cape coast lily from West Africa by Georg Dionysius Ehret, one of the greatest botanical artists of all time—was selected for BBG's holiday card.
BBG Florilegium Society Drawing
The BBG Florilegium Society's first exhibit of 50 drawings and paintings by 31 member artists opened to enthusiastic reviews on April 12, 2003. An online version of the exhibit was created for the BBG web site. Established in 2000 to document plants growing in the Garden's living collections and to help revitalize the centuries-old art of botanical illustration, the Florilegium Society collection increased in 2003 to 70 works in watercolor, gouache, acrylic, pen and ink, and graphite pencil. In addition to the 5 watercolors she has contributed to the BBG Florilegium, Monika E. de Vries Gohlke donated a suite of 20 elegant botanical engravings and a charming etching commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Cranford Rose Garden.
Among the year's most notable and generous gifts to BBG was a second florilegium, the Banks' Florilegium. A historically important work of great beauty, these engravings, printed in color, depict 743 of the 1,000 or more new species discovered by Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Carl Solander during the famous first voyage of Captain James Cook around the world in 1768–71. Based on the copperplate engravings produced under the direction of Banks after the return of Cook's expedition, this landmark botanical work was published in its entirety for the first time in the 20th century. Through the generosity of the estate of Robert H. Duenner, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, businessman, BBG has become one of the few public institutions in the United States that holds this monumental work of botanical scholarship. It is number 45 in an edition of 110 numbered sets.