Library and Archives
Library
The library at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (RSABG) specializes in systematic, floristic and evolutionary botany and the botany, horticulture, natural history and ethnobotany of California. It provides library support services for the staff and students of RSABG, members and volunteers of the organization, members of The Claremont Colleges and the general public.
Founder Bixby Bryant’s plan for her botanic garden included a research-quality library. She built a considerable personal collection in her lifetime and that collection continues to be the foundation of the library today. Some of her personal books can still be found in the library.
The library contains nearly 50,000 bound volumes and 750 current print and electronic journals and other periodicals related to the mission of RSABG. The collection is designed for education and research purposes and is geared towards graduate students and advanced researchers. It is composed of books, periodicals, reprints, microforms, pamphlets, article reprints and digital resources.
New Acquisitions The RSABG Library regularly acquires new resources that compliment and enhance the collection. Whether we purchase material, receive gifts, donations or exchange with other botanical institutions, the RSABG collections continue to grow. Read more about new acquisitions at the library.
Online catalog The holdings of the library are included in the online catalog of The Claremont Colleges, BLAIS.
Archives and Marcus Jones Materials
In addition to its library collection, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, is also the steward to many interesting and important archival holdings. Among these are the field notes, photographic images (from as early as the turn of the 20th century), as well as several unpublished manuscripts by noted plant collector, Marcus E. Jones.
Marcus E. Jones Materials Takes New Form with Online Archive
With the help of Lisa Gluckstein, the Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Intern at RSABG Summer 2011, turn-of-the-century photographs and archival documents from one of the leading botanists in the American West are getting the 21st-century treatment.
Gluckstein worked with RSABG staff to construct the initial phase of online access to the archives of the Jones collections.
Among the most prominent botanists of the American West working from the late 19th century through to the early 20th century, Jones’ plant collections, writings, glass-plate photographs and sundry other items of historical and botanical interest are held in the extensive herbarium and other archival collections at RSABG.
Undertaken between 1878 and 1923 the Jones collections represents a window into the regions, where previously there was with little or no botanical study. His exploration of the western states and parts of Mexico significantly contributed to the documentation of the flora of the American West. A graduate of Iowa College (now Grinnell College), Jones moved to Colorado Springs in 1878 and later to Salt Lake City in 1880. A part-time teacher, he spent much of his time botanizing in Utah and California. Jones’ work was important to the understanding of Western flora, including California. The Jones collection includes an estimated 100,000 botanical specimens from the western United States and Baja California, Mexico.
In addition to the support of The Getty Foundation’s Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program, images from the Jones archives were scanned using a high-resolution scanner provided by The Andrew W. Melon Foundation's Latin American Plants Initiative project.
To learn more visit the Marcus Jones website created by Gluckstein this summer.