Hunt Institute for Botanical
Documentation
A Research Division of Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
“Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt's collecting interests brought together
aspects of art,
history, science and literature as they related to plants and gardens. Her private book
collection was well known, and her scholarship led her also to collect related artworks,
portraits and manuscripts significant in the history of botany. Her collecting efforts, as
well as those of the early Hunt Botanical Library staff, focused on publications and manuscripts
from 1730 to 1840, a period of intense intellectual ferment
and productivity in botanical history.” [1]
The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation specializes in the history of
botany.
Founded in 1961, the Institute is an international center for bibliographical research and
service in the interests of botany and horticulture, as well as a center for the study of all
aspects of the history of the plant sciences. It serves the international scientific community
through research and documentation. The Institute maintains authoritative collections of books,
plant images, manuscripts, portraits and data files, and provides publications and other forms
of information service. It serves the reference needs of biologists, historians, librarians,
bibliographers and the interested public.
The Institute’s collections are curated by four departments: archives, art, bibliography,
and the library. The current collections include approximately 28,000 books and botanical
publications that date from the 1400s; 24,000 portraits and 30,000 watercolors, drawings and
prints; manuscripts, with 2,000 items such as letters, journals and diaries, field notes,
documents, drafts of published and unpublished books and articles, annotated maps, passports,
and other personal papers of botanists.
Databases at the Hunt Institute include one of the world’s largest and most broadly
representative collections of botanical art and illustration; the library, which is searchable
via the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries’ online catalogues
at http://cameo.library.cmu.edu;
the Categorical Glossary for the Flora of North America Project; the Register of Original
Botanical Art; the Portrait Collection; and databases pertaining to Linnaean dissertations.
The Institute is in the process of formatting existing databases for the Web.
[1] Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation web site
at http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu
Aquaphyte Contents |
Aquaphyte page | Home
CAIP-WEBSITE@ufl.edu
Copyright 2003 University of Florida