We passionately believe that there is a need to preserve as much as possible of our fuchsia heritage. This can take many forms. One of these is through the preservation of old documents and associated material: old catalogues, breeding records, and information on those responsible for the many introductions that make our fuchsia knowledge what it is today.
We recognise that much is transient and that once lost cannot be reclaimed. So, we are looking to the wider fuchsia community worldwide to help us preserve and make available to others as much fuchsia information as possible, before father time wins the battle.
Can you help? Any information – catalogues from existing and closed fuchsia nurseries, correspondence, breeder archives, personal recollections, pen portraits, relevant correspondence, or background information on introductions – will be welcomed. It may be that you have boxes of old catalogues etc sitting in the attic. Rather than throwing them out can we make use of them for the benefit of the wider fuchsia community? We do not need to have the originals; whilst any spare source material will be welcomed, we are happy to receive copies of documents via whatever means available: smartphones, for example, are perfect for copying nurseryman’s catalogues and associated documents. They will serve the same purpose. Anything received will be made freely available to anyone to use either for research or for your own personal use, with appropriate acknowledgements to the provider of each document.
If you can help us we would be greatly appreciative. Please contact either of us initially so that we can discuss with you the best way to preserve our fuchsia heritage.
Many thanks,
Eddy De Boever [FuchsiaFinder] fuchsiafinder@gmail.com
John Palmer [Fuchsiabase] fuchsiabase@gmail.com
What will we do with the digitised content?
- An inventory of digitised fuchsia related content can be found online on the FuchsiaFinder website. Go to https://fuchsiafinder.com/catalogues/
- The combined documents will form an Open Fuchsia Archive. Non-copyrighted content will be made available on request to researchers and other interested parties.
- Acquired catalogues will be used to add provenance for each cultivar in the FuchsiaFinder and FuchsiaBase databases and to improve the databases in general
How to proceed specifically to digitise publications?
- take a photo with your smartphone of each page of the relevant catalogue
- put the photos in a folder on your computer
- send the folder to fuchsiafinder@gmail.com and/or fuchsiabase@gmail.com using the free website WeTransfer.com
Digitising a catalogue typically takes less than 15 minutes. If you are not handy with smartphones and the internet yourself, you may want to ask your children and grandchildren for help. An ideal opportunity to spend time with them and introduce them to your hobby.
If you have source material you want to share but cannot digitise yourself, or original material that you wish to pass on to us, then please contact either of us so we can find a solution. If you are in the UK, USA, Australia or New Zealand then contact John; for mainland Europe please contact Eddy.
Avoiding duplication
To help you help us we have created records all catalogues we have already digitised. If you go to https://fuchsiafinder.com/catalogues/ you can check if we already have a copy of a specific catalogue. If we have it then there is no need to copy. If we don’t then we will be delighted to receive any catalogues or copies you may have.
Please distribute this letter to anyone that possibly has source material and might want to contribute to the Open Fuchsia Archive. In particular, we call on archivists of fuchsia societies and collectors of fuchsia lore to submit whatever they have lying around. The Open Fuchsia Archive will benefit the global fuchsia community.