Seed Libraries: A Crazy Idea That Grows on You
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[There it sat on the Du Quoin City Hall parking lot--part Titanic, part Ghostbusters woody--a curious looking silver schooner from the Dust Bowl days--simply dubbed "The Seed Story." It had large ink jet printer images of seeds laminated all over it. The seat was worn and the gear shifter had obviously been through a workout.
"This is crazy! Why am I here?"
No, it's not crazy. Inside the Du Quoin Public Library doors stood Jeanette Hart-Mann and Nina Dubois interviewing Du Quoin librarians and local Master Gardeners about the Du Quoin Public Library's recently launched "seed library"--all the time taping Master Gardeners John McClurken, Pam Swallers, Jane Chapman and others about the importance of both archiving heirloom seeds and exchanging seeds with fellow gardeners.
The theme: "What stories will YOUR seeds share" is part of their mobile seed story broadcasting station which offers daily blogs about seeds at SeedBroadcast.blogspot.com.
A seed library is an institution that lends or shares seed. It is distinguished from a seedbank in that the main purpose is not to store or hold germplasm or seeds against possible destruction, but to disseminate them to the public which preserves the shared plant varieties through propagation and further sharing of seed.Seed libraries usually maintain their collections through donations from members, but may also operate as pure charity operations intent on serving gardeners and farmers.
A common attribute of many seed libraries is to preserve agricultural biodiversity by focusing on rare, local, and heirloom seed varieties.
Seed libraries use varied methods for sharing seeds, primarily by:
seed swaps, in which library members or the public meet and exchange seeds
"lending," in which people check out seed from the library's collection, grow them, save the seed, and return seed from the propagated plants to the library
Seed libraries may function as programs of regular libraries, such as the program of the Richmond Public Library in California; or museums, such as the Hull-House Heirloom Seed Library, a program of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.
Some have developed as programs of botanical gardens, such as that of the VanDusen Botanical Garden, or from gardening associations and research institutes, such as the Heritage Seed Library of Garden Organic. Other seed libraries have evolved from community sustainability or resilience efforts, such as the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library (the United States' oldest seed library, which developed from the Berkeley, California Ecology Center); and still others from the Slow Food movement, such as Grow Gainesville's seed program.
Jeanette and Nina say they recently initiated the Seedy Mural on the exterior of the Seed Broadcast Mobile Seed Station. The images so far include seeds saved from Fodder Project Collaborative Research Farm, Suzanne Coffey, Cathy Kahn, and John and Cindy McCleod, all from their home base of New Mexico.
"We scanned and photographed these, then scaled them up, printed, and wheat pasted them all over the van. We will continue to paste the sides with images of seeds as we tour the country." Inside, there are computer generated tutorials on their work.
Jeanette is using the mobile seed story project as part of her thesis work. The SeedBroadcast Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station, seed libraries, farmers, gardeners, and folks who love local food, are teaming up for public seed story broadcast events across the country.
Local seed stories will be posted on their blog in the coming days.