Thanks to Carrie Clough, members of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Guild, the SB Organic Garden Club and the SB Rose Society were treated to an orientation to the amazing library at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden on Thursday evening, Sept 4th.  Librarian Joan Ariel introduced us to the collection and to the library's special online resources as well.

 

The library is free and open to the public, usually Tuesday - Thursday from 1-4 and 11 - 3 first Saturday of each month but you can also just e-mail Joan at jariel@sbbg.org to arrange an appointment.

 

And even before you go, you might want to research the catalog at www.centralcoastmuseums.org   This site includes a number of local libraries, so be sure to check specifically in the Botanic Garden collection.  For example on my most recent search,  "roses" brought up 77 titles, "permaculture" brought up 5, including 2 of Bill Mollison's works, and "organic gardening" brought up 77.  The library also has a collection of nursery catalogues.

 

The Botanic Garden library also will allow you to search an academic database called JSTOR to find the full text of journal articles on topics you're intereted in, and the library also allows the public to have access to the online Garden Literature and Horticultural Index, so there's almost no limit to what you can find!

 

As Santa Barbara transitions to a post-fossil-fuel economy, it will be invaluable to have this kind of access to wonderful and useful information.

 

A big thank you to Joan and Carrie!

 

Linda