“Wood Libraries: Knowing with Wood and Word”

Bonnie Mak

“Wood Libraries: Knowing with Wood and Word”

The Caxtonian 29.3 (May/June 2021): 1–3

"A wood library sounds as if it should be a collection of books on the topic of wood. In fact, it is a collection of wood. How can we “know” with wood? …. Because they are comprehensive collections of wood specimens, wood libraries are of significant use to those with interests in forestry, the wood sciences, and the wood trade. Yet William L. Stern, former curator of wood collections at the Smithsonian and professor of botany, despaired in 1973 that such collections in the United States were in the process of being consolidated. Recent years have witnessed a further devaluation of wood libraries: efforts have been made to separate the “scientific” wood libraries at research institutions—often associated with herbaria and microscope slides—from the more “informal” collections of woodworkers and hobbyists. What may be seen in the wood library, then and now, is a continuing debate about how to know nature. Are trees best understood through words and taxonomic names? Through tables or spreadsheets filled with numbers and genomic data? Or through an experience of nature itself? Standing, as we are, at the precipice of an environmental disaster of global proportions, whatever ways we have come to think nature should be known have proven inadequate. What will be needed to address the current crisis is a richer understanding of our world that is based on more and different ways of knowing."

2021