Hookathon: hacking the Herbarium

The Archives, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

Explore and experiment with the historical datasets and images relating to Joseph Hooker  for the first time at Kew Gardens Herbarium

Herbarium & Library

For the first time, Kew Gardens are  offering historical datasets and images relating to Joseph Hooker, inviting you to explore imaginative ways in which digital  tools can be used to  experiment with these sources and provide new ways of understanding this historical data. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817 – 1911) was a trailblazing botanist and explorer. Detailing plant diversity and economic botany throughout his many expeditions, he remains an influential figure to modern botanical science. The legacy of Hooker’s work can be seen throughout Kew: from the new plant specimens he introduced to Kew, as most notably seen within the Rhododendron Dell, to the dried specimens, museums objects, publications and illustrations which are housed within Kew Gardens.  It was his exploration of the Himalayas and India, 1847-1851, which he is perhaps best known and one which would elevate his standing as not only a botanist but as one of Britain’s foremost scientists. Through his intensive plant-hunting, he collected over 3,000 different species of plants and Hooker also executed over 700 illustrations of plants. Of note amongst the haul were 25 previously undescribed species of Rhododendron. Objects collected include items such as a yak saddle made of rhododendron wood, or tea cups made from the root knots of maple trees and watercolours depicting opium production in India. Many parts of these valuable collections have been digitised by the respective departments in Kew which house these collections to improve access to these resources.  The challenge for this Hackathon is to use digital humanities tools to explore the Hooker related data, primarily relating to his collecting trip to India, at Kew. Participants will work together in teams to find diverse ways to connect, analyse, visualise and interpret the data, and at the end of the day will present their ideas in a ‘show and tell session’. We are especially interested in exploring ways to link together plant illustrations, herbarium records, objects and correspondence written by Hooker in order to increase our knowledge and understanding of how these plants were collected and to reunite these now dispersed collections. Participants will be encouraged to look at, but not limited to, using metadata enrichment, crowdsourcing, text-mining, social network visualisation and analysis, geomapping, digital image and machine learning and game design.Datasets will include: <a href="https://jdhooker.kew.org/p/jdh?transcript=available&amp;q=hooker" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Over 600 transcripts of manuscript letters</a> <a href="https://jdhooker.kew.org/p/jdh" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Images of handwritten letters, including letters addressed to Charles Darwin and other imminent Victorian scientists such as Sir Charles Wheatstone, Sir William Hooker, Alexander Von Humboldt and Nathaniel Wallich.</a><a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/227693#page/1/mode/1up" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Publications by Hooker, including Hooker’s Himalayan Journals</a> <a href="https://www.kew.org/science/collections-and-resources/collections/illustrations-and-artefacts-collection" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">300 images of botanical illustrations of plants collected in Sikkim and field sketches documenting the culture and landscape encountered on his journey</a><a href="" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"></a> <a href="https://ecbot.science.kew.org/result_ecbot.php?pageno=1&amp;name=hooker&amp;numrows=100&amp;searchtermname=" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Dataset and images of items from the Economic Botany Collection collected by Hooker.</a> <a href="https://www.kew.org/search?textsearch=hooker" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Over 100 blogs and new articles about Sir Joseph Hooker published on the Kew Gardens website. </a><a href="" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Over 1000 Herbarium specimen records and images</a> The day will include short introductions to Sir Joseph Hooker, the digital collections and datasets and on how to go about hacking for beginners. Organisers will provide on the day access to the data and suggested range of digital tools and possible approaches. Food and drink will be available throughout the day, including pizza, soft drinks and assorted snacks. The event is free to attend, but numbers are limited. You can read more about Sir Joseph Hooker’s legacy at Kew and the project to digitise and transcribe his letters, <a href="https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/projects/joseph-hooker-correspondence-project" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

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Hookathon: hacking the Herbarium

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Hookathon: hacking the Herbarium

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