MCCLC 2008 Spring Meeting & Tour
Brooklyn Botanical Garden
The Greater New York MCCLC, Metropolitan Catholic College Librarians’ Chapter, met for our Spring gathering and tour of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Friday, April 18. The weather was absolutely spectacular! We enjoyed an hour and a half tour of the gardens, including: the Shakespeare Garden – featuring lovely flowers and plants featured in his works, along with quotes from Shakespearean plays and sonnets, the Alice Recknagel Ireys Fragrance Garden, the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, The Cherry Walk, The Bluebell Wood, and the Rock Garden. Many of the flowers and trees were in full bloom or just beginning to bloom. Our tour guide provided us with much information about the history of the garden as well as detailed insights of the plants, trees, and flowers in the garden.
After the garden tour, our group went to the Library and Gardener’s Resource Center for a presentation from Pat Jonas, Library Director, about the history of their collection & their newly renovated library. The library was reduced in size from its original collection after renovations to the building in 2007. We learned about their online resources, including their digitized collection of the Louis Buhle collection. Louis Buhle was Brooklyn Botanic Garden's official photographer from 1915 until 1968. Their Rare Book collection boasts of books on agriculture and horticulture from the 15th through the 20th centuries. “The Gardener's Resource Center provides reference services to home gardeners, staff, and the professional horticultural community.” http://www.bbg.org/lib/grc.html. This Resource Center is located in the historic McKim, Mead & White Administration Building along with the main Visitor’s Center.
Following our tour and presentation at the Resource Center, we visited the library’s annex building, located about a block away from the gardens. This is where the library director, the archivist, and assistants work and where the thousands of documents, periodicals and lantern slides are housed. “The Garden's gallery of historic photographs now includes hand-painted glass lantern slides from the E.M. Kittredge collection, a stunning documentation of the flora of the Northeast.” http://www.bbg.org/sci/
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was founded in 1910 and will be celebrating their 100th anniversary in a few short years. Although we didn’t have the opportunity to cover all of the 52 acres of plants and flowers, we did a fair amount of touring during our visit. In addition to the daffodils, cherry blossoms, and magnolias we also saw many turtles, koi, and ducks in the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, the masterpiece of its creator, Japanese landscape designer Takeo Shiota (1881-1943) . We even visited the Shinto shrine. “The wooden shrine is dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of harvest, and two stone foxes on either side of the entrance gate represent messengers of the deity. The present structure was erected in 1960, replacing the original shrine.” http://www.bbg.org/exp/stroll/japanese_tour.html
Anyone who attended our tour will tell you what a wonderful experience we all had. If you missed joining us, you can take a virtual stroll through the gardens by visiting http://www.bbg.org/exp/stroll/. They have a great website which allows you to not only tour the gardens but also presents much useful information about BBG. The Resource Center is open to the public. Visit the BBG website, www.bbg.org for details about hours and admission. Some of our tour stayed for lunch at the outdoor Terrace Café. Our chapter plans to meet again in Fall 2008.
Respectfully submitted,
Lois Cherepon, President, MCCLC
