Hopefully many of you saw the announcement of the Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project on the list yesterday. (www.kew.org/josephhooker).

I’d like to follow up that announcement with a request for volunteers.

We need people to help us transcribe Hooker's letters held in the archive of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew so we can continue to bring them out of the archive and get them online.

Hooker was the Director of Kew for twenty years during its Victorian hey-day, when the gardens were at the centre of a botanical empire. He was also a botanist and plant hunter of great reputation in his own day. He accompanied Ross to the Antarctic, trekked unexplored regions of the Himalayas and started a craze in European gardens with his newly introduced species of Rhododendrons. He corresponded with many of the great scientists of the 19th century, and today is probably best known as Charles Darwin's closest friend and supporter.

If you are interested in Hooker, Kew, gardening, exploration, history, science, or even history of science Hooker's letters contain plenty of interest. For budding archivists, volunteering as a transcriber would be a great way to get some practical experience of palaeography.

You don't need to come to Kew to be part of the team, we are looking for remote volunteers who can work from home producing typed transcripts from digital images of the letters.

There is more information and a chance to test your skills deciphering Hooker's handwriting on the project website http://www.kew.org/collections/hooker/volunteer-information/index.htm

To volunteer or request further information contact [log in to unmask]

Virginia Mills

Project Officer, Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project

Herbarium, Library, Art & Archives
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AE
 
Tel  +44 (0) 20 8332 5450
e-mail: [log in to unmask]