Royal Garden Library of Herrenhausen

The research programme "Royal Garden Library of Herrenhausen" constitutes a joint research project of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library and the Centre of Garden Art and Landscape Architecture (CGL) of the Leibniz Universität Hannover, sponsored by the state of Lower Saxony. The comprehensive source material in the Hanoverian holdings of the Royal Garden Library of Herrenhausen is being indexed, catalogued and scientifically evaluated in a number of stages. Funded by: Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture 

In July 2007 the former "Royal Garden Library of Herrenhausen" passed into public possession. A collection of manuscripts and books that is invaluable for the history of the Herrenhausen gardens as well as for the history of botany and garden culture thus became accessible for research for the first time. The collection comprises books and priceless holdings of manuscripts, drawings and herbaria. Part of the collection – mostly consisting of books – is located today in the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library in Frankfurt and the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. The holdings in the  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library (GWLB) also contain manuscripts, herbaria and drawings and are an important source for the history of Herrenhausen and the court gardeners who worked there.

In the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library (GWLB), the part of the collection purchased by the state of Lower Saxony is being indexed and catalogued scientifically. In cooperation with the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library in Frankfurt and the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, it is intended to reunite the collection virtually in an online portal and to make it available to the general public and to the scientific community.

The web-based project "Bücher und Gärten in Hannover“ ("Books and gardens in Hannover") intends to bring together collections, research, publications and events on this subject area in the Hannover region. This project offers Hanoverian institutions and collaborating partners a central platform for publicizing databases, events and other outcomes of the projects.

The academic appraisal of two important topics relating to the collection's contents has taken place in the context of two dissertations written at the CGL in the course of two years (1 January 2009 - 31 June 2011).

Dissertation topics:

• Der Berggarten - Seine wissenschaftliche Bedeutung und sein Stellenwert als botanischer Garten im (exemplarischen) Vergleich zu anderen bedeutenden Hofgärten und zu akademischen botanischen Gärten (Dr.-Ing. Sophie Gräfin von Schwerin). 
• Die Hofgärtner in Herrenhausen - Werk und Wirken unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der ´Gärtnerdynastie´ der Wendlands (Dr.-Ing. Katharina Peters).

The results were published in the CGL series of papers in 2013 (CGL-Studies vol. 12 and vol. 13).

From 18 to 20 March 2010 the workshop "Königliche Gartenbibliothek Herrenhausen. Eine neue Sicht auf Gärten und ihre Bücher" took place in Hannover, jointly organised by the CGL and the GWLB. It served above all to prepare further research projects.