 
 The
Library has over 1.25 million accessioned items from the twelfth through
twentieth centuries with strengths in plant systematics, floristics, plant
ecology, and the history of botany, landscape and garden design, horticulture,
and botanical illustration. There are over 272,000 volumes and 185 linear
feet of microforms (approximately 31,000). The Library receives approximately
2,000 current serial titles through subscription, gift, or publication
exchange. New book acquisitions numbered 1,576 titles in FY 1999.
 Member's
Circulating Collection:
The
Collection contains over 2600 gardening, horticultural and botanical titles
of general interest. The holdings are listed in Catalpa,
the Library's Online Catalog, and available onsite
for borrowing by Garden Members.
Library cards can be obtained by presenting a valid Garden Membership card
and completing an application form. Members may borrow three books at any
one time. The loan period for all books is three weeks. Books may be renewed
if they are not requested by another reader.
NOTE: Items marked with "*" are locally mounted databases and can be searched
onsite.
Botanical
Art and Illustrations
 The
study of botany has many phases. For plant systematics and floristic studies
herbarium specimens must be prepared. Plants are first collected in the
field, then pressed and dried. These specimens can then later be studied,
described and illustrated. The illustrations help elucidate the written
word. The skill in interpreting the details of the plant often transforms
the illustration into art. The Library has a significant collection of
botanical art and illustration, containing over 13,000 works. The collection
was established as a separate unit within the Library in 1972, and encompasses
a broad range of media including line drawings (graphite, pencil, crayon,
pen and ink, charcoal), prints (etchings, engravings, lithographs, woodcuts)
watercolors, oil paintings and sculpture. The collection includes illustrations
prepared for Garden publications usually drawn to supplement a botanical
description of species collected and described by Garden botanists,
watercolors, drawings and sketches documenting genetic research of Garden
scientists, such as the hybridization of the daylily and the seedless grape.
Other important collections include illustrations documenting early U.S.
exploring expeditions, illustrations from published and unpublished floras
such as Flora Borequeno, Flora Cubana, Flora Hawaiiensis,
and Flora Neotropica, original illustrations from important taxonomic
works such as Les Liliacees and Britton and Brown's Illustrated
Flora of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. The collection
is important as a tool for taxonomic research, a resource in the history
of botanical art, scholarly comparison of original to published work, exhibits,
and is an important resource for illustrations of plants needed by researchers.
The
Garden also has a small collection of portraits. Included are the famous
personalities John Torrey and David Hosack. This collection contains sculpted
busts, bas reliefs, and oil paintings.
Reprints:
The
reprint collection contains articles on botanical, ecological, horticultural
or related topics, many from journals or photocopies from periodicals not
held by the Library. These files provide easy access to a large amount
of literature published by a given author. Reprints are housed in folders
arranged by the primary author. Whenever possible, reprints are used instead
of the bound, often fragile, journals for photocopying or interlibrary
loan. This collection is not cataloged.
Nursery
and Seed Catalogs:
 The
LuEsther T. Mertz Library acquires and maintains current and historical
seed catalogs and lists from dealers and institutions throughout the world.
In 1968 the Horticultural Society of New York turned over to the Garden
its entire accumulation of seed catalogs, helping to make the Garden's
collection the largest in the metropolitan area.
Seed
catalogs are important for those studying the development, popularity and
history of horticultural varieties as well as the development of garden
design, lawn ornamentation and garden tools and are valuable for reconstruction
or restoration work. Early catalogs often contain published descriptions
of new horticultural varieties of lasting importance to horticultural and
botanical nomenclature.
The
artwork in seed catalogs is also deserving of attention. In America, seeds
and plants were first offered to the mass market through handbills, broadsides,
and catalogs. Competition for mail-order consumer dollars was fierce, and
catalog illustrations grew increasingly elaborate in order to attract customers.
The 1890s through the early twentieth century is considered the Golden
Age of seed catalog art.
The
historical and current catalogs held at the Garden are housed separately
and accessible through two local
databases maintained at the Library. The historical seed catalog
database is searchable by firm name, state or country. The current seed
catalog can be searched by subject (general plant categories) or company
name.
Index
Seminum:
Index
seminum are institutional lists which other institutions can use to buy
or trade seeds. The Garden's collection contains lists from institutions
world wide. The Royal Botanical Gardens in Ontario, Canada turned over
their collection of older Index Seminum to the Garden in 1995. The Index
seminum collection is currently being cataloged by the Library's Technical
Services staff to be made accessible through the on-line catalog, CATALPA.
Vertical
File:
The
Vertical File contains loose material, clippings and photocopies from newspapers
and magazines, illustrations and similar items, that would be difficult
or impossible to arrange in any other system. The material is arranged
by subject and housed in three separate filing systems: General subjects
(including plant names), people and places, and the Garden. The Technical
Services Department is currently cataloging the general subject vertical
file, changing the file headings to Library of Congress subject headings
and downloading these records into the Library's on-line catalog, CATALPA.
Taxonomic
Literature Data Files:
This
assembled data file represents approximately 60 percent more bibliographic
data than that appearing in the published
seven volume work. These files have been augmented by additional
documentation prepared for the Supplements. Much of the original
data collection for this work was based on published and inpublished material
in the Garden collections. The files consist of four separate alphabetical
(by author) sequences. Approximately 45% of the alphabet has now been interfiled.
Only a portion of the TL2 file is ready accessible.
 
The
Archives of The New York Botanical Garden provide a comprehensive history
of the growth and development of the Garden since its inception in 1891
and the history of botanical science and horticulture as fields of study.
The Archives contains 2,560 linear feet of archives and manuscripts and
holds unpublished materials such as correspondence and working papers of
botanists, horticulturists, curators and educators. The collection also
includes collector's field notebooks, the administrative and historical
records of The New York Botanical Garden, photographs, architectural plans,
maps, original botanical illustration and portraits.
The Archives
are open by appointment only. Please contact Susan Fraser at sfraser@nybg.org
or send your inquiry to:
The Archives
The LuEsther T. Mertz Library
New York Botanical Garden
Bronx, NY 10458-5126
Institutional
Records:
Records,
created as a result of official Garden activities, have been organized
into groups and contain correspondence, research notes, reports, minutes,
proposals for funding and related documents, images (includes photographs,
botanical art and illustrations, slides and lantern slides), field notes,
documentation of scientific research, and other historical documents.
Personal
Papers:
Papers
of Garden staff and other individuals whose work is related to the mission
of the Garden. These persons are notable scientists and horticulturists
associated with the history of botany and horticulture in the United States,
the development of the Garden and its work. Their papers include correspondence,
manuscripts and research notes, scrapbooks and clippings.
Repository
Archives:
Records
of important botanical and horticultural organizations and plant societies
with which the Garden has a programmatic or historical relationship. See
our list
of repository archives, which includes links to their sites.
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Lord and Burnham
Collection
 This
collection contains significant material for research on both the heritage
and technology of historical glass structures erected in the United States
as well as the contributions made by Lord and Burnham to American culture.
It yields important landscape information and is a record of the unique
achievement by the Lord & Burnham Company. The bulk of this collection
is comprised of architectural drawings for greenhouses and conservatories
erected in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. The primary subjects area of the Lord and Burnham Collection
is glasshouses, in its functional form as the greenhouse and its more ornamental
design, the conservatory. The media represented are pencil or pen and ink
on paper, pen and ink on drafting linen and tracing paper, as well as a
variety of photographic reproductions.
A
project is now underway to inventory, preserve and re-house the architectural
drawings in this collection. Preservation work includes flattening, surface
cleaning, minor paper repair, and re-housing sets of drawings into pH neutral
folders and storing the folders in steel flat file drawers.
Information
about the collection has been entered into a searchable local
database. The database can be searched by name of owner or site,
city, state, country, folio number (from Lord and Burnham's original filing
system), and type of structure. Please contact the Library for more information
about this collection, including reproduction of architectural plans.
Selected Publications:
-
Fraser, Susan. 1996. "Collectors' field notebooks at The New York Botanical
Garden Library." Brittonia 48: 308-317.
-
Long, Charles R. 1978. "Natural history manuscripts and related materials
in the Archives of The New York Botanical Garden." Journal. Society
for the Bibliography of Natural History 8 (4): 343-349.
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