Text editions of the Linnaean correspondence
SUMMARY
We are applying for support for text editions of Linnaeus letters, the Linnaean Correspondence (45% in Swedish and 45% in Latin). The letters are summarized in English. Biographical and bibliographical databases are created and digitized images of the letters published. The project will significantly strengthen and increase the knowledge about different aspects of nature, society and languages during the 18th. c. Linnaeus disciples and a majority of his correspondents wrote from abroad and had international contacts. The letters tell us of living conditions, customs, etc. and provide a unique insight into the conditions of natural history research. The letters in Swedish are a fascinating source of how Linnaeus treated his own language. He wrote in a lively and original way, often in a mixture of Swedish, Småland dialect, Latin, and scientific jargon, which can be seen in his letters to the close friend Abraham Bäck and those to and from the disciples. From the letters it is also apparent that Linnaeus uses his "Svartbäckslatin" exceptionally well to reach his purposes. His intention is to write a clear, witty Latin. His rhetoric and cocky self-assured attitude is his strength. Although there are some morphological defects and sometimes a certain clumsiness, his Latin fills its function perfectly well in all respects. In the letters we can follow the development of one of Linnaeus great creations, the botanical Latin.
1. The project’s purpose and any amendments aim during the project period
The project, “Text editions of Linnaeus correspondence” (IN12-1365: 1) is designed to make available the extensive Linnaeus correspondence at four different levels.
The project is important for a variety of research fields: scientific networks, 18th Century botany, zoology and taxonomy, but also to study the language of science, 18th Century general cultural history, personal history or institutional history. The material also has a very large popular science potential. Similarly, the previously established summaries in English of the letters enables involvements for international users.
There have been changes to the project in the sense that during this project funds were reallocated to carry on the work for four instead of three years and thus trying to get as much of the material published with the highest level of ambition.
In the current project an agreement has also been reached between the present project-based database responsible organization, the Center International d’étude you XVIIIe siècle, in Ferney-Voltaire, and Uppsala University Library, to migrate the project database in the autumn 2017 to the Alvin system in another project (IN15 -0725: 1).
2. The project’s results and a discussion of these
We publish letters at four different levels:
• transcripts of the letters
• summaries in English letters Content
• digital images of manuscripts, letters
• and in some cases pdfs of prior editions and translations.
Our knowledge of the repositories – 70 archives in 15 countries – stems partly from previous catalogs of correspondence, and partly from an extensive inventory. The largest holding is at the Linnean Society, where most of the letters to Linnaeus’s are kept.
When previous projects started in 1995, the focus were to make a traditional critical edition with transcriptions of all the letters and shorter summaries in English of the content of the letters. After a few years, the project’s steering committee decided that the transcripts should be put aside in favor of more detailed summaries in English, as well as digital facsimiles of the letters were to be published. When this decision was taken only a few hundred of the more than 6,000 letters had been transcribed. Right up until 2012 the previous project therefore was focused on the work of summaries and digitization. Most of the letters were by then summarized and digitized.
After a renewed consideration and after several requests from different researchers using our database, the current project application were made, where the ambition was to transcribe the remaining approximately 5,000 letters. From the start of this project, therefore the work has primarily been focused on transcribing the letters. To expedite the process, we used OCR technique for most of the previously published correspondence, especially the ten volumes of Bref och skrifvelser av och till Carl von Linné (1907–1943). At this point we can conclude that the transcription process has been much more demanding and time-consuming than we anticipated. The project involves many tasks at different levels, and a continuous coordination – even of previously published material. Meanwhile, the digital images of letters recently commissioned from twenty different archives in Europe and the US, have meant additional burdens with both transcriptions as summaries and coordination with other letter content. This project is therefore not yet finished, at the time of this writing about 1,000 letters remain to work with in this way. In a concluding project (IN15-0725: 1) we hope to get further along. External expectations are great when it comes to the completion of this project.
As the project, continuously has published the results at the project site during the run of the project a high degree of interactivity has been achieved with the international scientific community. In addition to such direct connections, the cooperation with the Linnean Society of London and their adjacent digitization project has been of paramount importance. Also the contacts with the international cooperation Linnaeus Link, where you can search in several library stocks of Linnaeus’ writings around the world, have also been important.
Thus, we have frequently experienced that scientists around the world make great use of this resource, when we meet them at conferences or when they contact us directly. Linnean Society, are obviously very interested in this project, and it is the natural meeting place for all researchers with an interest in the work of Linnaeus. They have reported that they have noticed an increased interest and a growing number of inquiries based on our database.
3. Unforeseen technical and methodological problems
It is important to emphasize that the expertise which has been gained from the project is completely unique. Nevertheless, text publishing of the 18th century that involves manuscripts in various languages means complications, which can hardly be unforeseen problems. But it is worth pointing out the complexity of this text publishing project. Besides the language issue, about 45% of the letters are in Latin and an equal share in Swedish, the other 10 percent is distributed in English, French, German, Danish and some letters in Dutch, it contains letters with scientific content, a wide range of text-critical problems and an almost infinite amount of biographical and bibliographical information. In addition, there is often very difficult to interpret the writings – over 700 correspondents, each with their own handwriting. Minor modifications to the database functions have also been implemented in collaboration with the Center international d’étude you XVIIIe siècle and an external developer of the web page.
4. Work integration of authority/organization and how the work will be taken forward
The long-term critical issue, the migration of the database to the Alvin system at Uppsala University Library, will take place in the ensuing project (IN15-0725: 1), because this project required more extensive work. The long-term responsibility for the preservation and future development as well as additions and corrections to the database is thus planned to move to Uppsala University Library. Linnaeus correspondence will thus in the future be found on Linnaeus’s own university, which guarantees that the work will be carried out in the best way, both technically and content wise, today and tomorrow. Until the Alvin system was in place the question of how the project database would live on was not clear, but with the Alvin system in place, the answer was given. Moreover, the project database will increase the demands on the Alvin system in terms of features found in the project database, but not from the beginning having its counterpart in the Alvin system. So the Linnaeus correspondence needs Alvin, but Alvin also needs Linnaeus to develop further!
5. New research questions generated by the project
Interest in scientific communication and global cooperation during the early modern era is currently increasing. Which several international conferences and workshops testifies of, for example: “Nature’s Empire: A Global History of Linnaean Sciences in the Long Eighteenth-Century” Florence in 2014; “From Cabinet to the Internet: Digitizing Natural History and Medical Manuscripts” London 2015; The 14th International Congress for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Rotterdam, 2015. We are confident that the work we have put in to publishing Linnaeus’ correspondence in the way we have done with transcriptions, summaries in English will be much used – it is already used a lot today. To this also the biographical and bibliographical information we provide mean that 90% of the correspondence becomes more accessible and possible to understand for most users through the English summaries and moreover it is now possible to study most of the letters manuscripts digitally. There are also all the metadata we deliver on previous editions and translations. The results from the project are already and will form a basis for further research.
6. Any links to their own websites
Project website with full functionality can be found at: http://linnaeus.c18.net
See also the project Linnaeus Link at: http://www.linnaeuslink.org