The Linnaeus Link Project

The Linnaeus Link Project is an international collaboration between libraries with significant holdings of Linnaean material.  Its main aim is to produce a comprehensive, online Union Catalogue of Linnaean publications to facilitate research for scholars worldwide, enabling them to identify locations of titles with a single internet search.

Since the inaugural meeting in 1999, many important institutions have committed to moving the project forward and the current list of partners is as follows:

• Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem
• British Library (London)
• Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques de la Ville de Genève
• Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation (Pittsburgh, PA)
• Det Kongelige Bibliotek. Nationalbibliotek og Københavns universitetsbibliotek [Royal Library: National Library and Copenhagen University Library]
• Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien [Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences] (Stockholm)
• Linnean Society of London
• Natural History Museum (London)
• New York Botanical Garden
• Real Jardín Botánico, Madrid [Royal Botanic Garden, Madrid]
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London)
• Stockholms universitetsbibliotek [Stockholm University Library]
• Svenska Linnésällskapet [Swedish Linnaeus Society] (Uppsala)
• Uppsala universitetsbibliotek [Uppsala University Library]

In 2004 The Linnean Society of London funded a three-year project to catalogue the extensive Linnaean collection at the Natural History Museum, with the Museum providing staff support and facilities.  This project has now been completed and the resulting high-quality electronic records have formed the initial core of the catalogue and provided a test-bed for the technical implementation of the system.  The Linnean Society has also funded the software development.

The Linnaeus Link Union Catalogue is now available online. There are 1,680 separate bibliographic records on the system. 

Linnaean records from The Linnean Society of London, The Natural History Museum, Royal Library: National Library and Copenhagen University Library, Uppsala University Library, Botanic Garden and Botanic Museum Berlin-Dahlem and The British Library have been included already.

The Future of the Project

The Royal Botanic Garden Madrid, the Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques de la Ville de Genève and the New York Botanical Garden are preparing to contribute their records.  It is hoped that they will be online during 2009.

The Union Catalogue is now managed by staff at the Linnean Society of London and the system is hosted by the University of London Computer Centre.

The 13th annual partners meeting took place at the Linnean Society of London on 16-17 October 2008.  22 delegates attended, representing institutions in Sweden, the USA, Germany, Switzerland and the UK.  The meeting covered a wide range of topics and sparked ideas that will now be incorporated into the future strategy of the project.

The next annual partners meeting will take place at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, USA on 4-7 November 2009.

Click here to read more about the background of this project

Please contact the Linnaeus Link Project Co-ordinator, Lynda Brooks, for further information.

lynda(at)linnean.org