The Digitisation of Kew’s Directors’ Correspondence Collection

This article is a brief summary of an ongoing project at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to digitise a large collection of historic correspondence contained within our archive. The project team comprises four full time staff; team leader Helen Hartley and three project digitisers; Charlotte Rowley, Virginia Mills and myself. In this article the scope of the collection will be discussed and the aims for digitisation explained. Our methodology will be presented and some example correspondence highlighted. Some tips for those embarking on a digitisation project will be provided as well as methods for project promotion. Through this project we hope to increase access to a vital source of historic data and bring the exciting stories behind our botanical collections to a larger audience.