On the QT | The Official Newsletter of GWA June - July 2017 | Page 18

S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y N A N C Y TAY LO R R O B S O N Sustaining Our Knowledge Base Paper, digital and seed libraries: Vital options in the quest for permanent reference resources The Ancient Library of Alexandria, Egypt, which was probably the first major informa- tion repository in the Western world, lasted for 300-plus years. It was destroyed by fire in 48 B.C. that took with it from tens to hundreds of thousands of papyrus scrolls, together with the cultural and scientific knowledge they contained. As a species, humans build on accumulated knowledge. To that end, we try to create sustain- able, accessible and trustworthy storehouses for that collective knowledge. R E D U C I N G T H E R I S K O F LO S S I S I M P O R TA N T Papyrus, parchment and paper burn. Fac- tions, war and natural disasters destroy archives while digital systems can crash. It’s all at risk one way or another. Retaining factual information depends on how we gather, verify and store it. But being able to use it is just as important as preserving it. For example, preserving the wealth of genetic information available in seeds depends on saving plants from extinction and making sure their seeds remain viable. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway and some 1,700 other seed banks around the globe were established to do just that. “By some estimates, we’ve lost 60 to 70 percent of our cultivated plants over time,” said John Torgrimson, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, which sends seed to Svalbard and regularly tests seed for continued viability. “We’re pretty sure there were once 20,000 varieties of North American apples, and now there are about 4,000.” This varietal loss might not sound important until we remember that the bulk of the phar- maceuticals we depend on originate in nature, and that we make new (and appealingly weird) 18 Adam’s Pearmain apple, an old-fashioned, dessert apple introduced in England in 1826, has a sweet, slightly nutty flavor. Scab-resistant Cranberry Pippin apple, which dates back from 1845, originated near Hudson, in Columbia County, New York. discoveries each year. For example, scientists have recently learned that Komodo dragon blood contains a potential antibiotic. per,” said Kirk Brown, John Bartram enactor and lecturer. “You can’t burn books as easily as you can pull the plug on a digital media (platform).” Digital media is also hackable and mutable in a way that paper is not. Without documents, we would not have the Bartrams’ detailed lists of plants native to this continent, which would be an informational loss of both the benefits those plants offer and the self-sustaining ecology they represent. To truly sustain information, we need it all. Diversity is backup. Monoculture and monolithic systems are far more susceptible to catastrophic destruction than a diverse, even diffuse system. “The Alexandria Library lost all its information because it was all in one place,” noted Kathy Jentz, editor of Washington Gardener magazine. EPHEMERA FILL IN THE BLANKS Sustaining verifiable and accessible infor- mation of all kinds is a multifaceted enterprise. It depends on many people, including those who hold onto the kind of ephemera that often gets chucked out such as old letters and diaries. These tidbits, such as Thomas Jefferson’s garden books and John and William Bartram’s extensive botanical research, help to inform us of gradual changes in the natural world. “The strongest body of supporting evidence that I use for most of my lectures and all of the interpretations I do goes back to words on pa-