Almost everything seems to be going electronic these days, including books. The renowned Apple® has its iPad® and iPhone® e-book app, iBookstore™; Amazon has the Kindle™ handheld e-reader device; Barnes and Noble has the Nook™; Borders has Kobo™; and Google makes thousands of rare and out-of-print books available online via its Google Books platform. The beauty of this technological transition is availability: books that may cost tens of thousands of dollars in print can often be downloaded as a PDF for little to no cost at all.
At the time this article was published, a search for “herbal” in Google Books pulled up “About 640,000 results,”1 but the breadth of the universe of books available through this search engine goes far beyond that basic search term. Interested scientists can find many valuable titles in the areas of botany, taxonomy, phytogeography, pharmacy, materia medica, dispensatory, pharmacopeia, ethnobotany, and a variety of other subjects.
Oftentimes, rare and out-of-print books can be found in their entirety on Google Books, in either PDF or e-pub format. One of the authors of this article, for example, is working on a HerbalGram piece on adulterants and adulteration, and most of the books being used for references have been downloaded in their entirety from Google books. In 2008, the American Botanical Council bestowed its annual James A. Duke Excellence in Botanical Literature Award to Google Books, due to its increasing of the “availability and awareness of out-of-print, limited access, and otherwise rare botanical classics going back to the 1700s—the contents of which have previously been available to only a few researchers and collectors.” (For more on the award, please see this HerbalGram 78 article.
In addition to Google Books, websites such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library2 provide digital versions of subject-specific, out-of-print, or public domain works, as well as licensed journals. Like Google Books, the search terms and spelling of the terms matter. The first English edition of Rembert Doeden’s 1578 A New Herball, or Historie of Plants, for example, is found in the Biodiversity Heritage Library by using the search term “Herball” rather than “Herbal.”
Unfortunately, many antique publications that are downloadable as free e-books and formatted as an e-pub are scanned with optical character recognition (OCR) and are not edited. This usually makes scanned documents searchable, but modern OCR software does not always recognize characters from the 1500s. This means, regrettably, that the software sometimes attempts to translate characters it does not know, and ends up printing incomprehensible words.
Occasionally, however, even old books can be downloaded as searchable PDFs. Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal, a two-volume major herbal from the 1700s—notably written by a woman—is available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.3 A search of AbeBooks.com revealed that an original 1782 edition sells for $90,000, making the downloadable version quite a bargain.4
While not every resource is digitally available yet, the Internet and e-books are becoming increasingly prevalent venues for research. Instead of trekking to a physical library, researchers at least can begin their investigations from their own home office computers—or with e-readers such as the iPad and Kindle from their living rooms. Additionally, downloadable books and e-reading devices enable researchers to tote more resources with them in the field and not weigh their backpacks down with heavy books and field guides. Likewise, herbalists and herbal-interested laypersons can enjoy the convenience of e-books while wild collecting or working in their gardens, or when preparing remedies in their kitchens. Some available herbal e-books include:
Medical Herbalism: The Science and Practice of Herbal Medicine by David Hoffmann (Healing Arts Press, 2010). Available for Barnes & Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle, Borders Kobo, select sections on Google Books.
The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to New World Medicinal Plants by Matthew Wood (North Atlantic Books, 2011 ). Available for Nook, Kindle, Kobo, select sections on Google Books.
The Herbal Kitchen: 50 Easy-to-Find Herbs and Over 250 Recipes to Bring Lasting Health to You and Your Family by Kami McBride (Conari Press, 2010). Available for Nook, Kindle, Kobo, select sections on Google Books.
Herbal Remedies for Women: Discover Nature's Wonderful Secrets Just for Women by Amanda McQuade Crawford (Three Rivers Press, 1997). Available for Nook, Kindle, Kobo, select sections on Google Books.
The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual by James Green (Crossing Press, 2000). Available on Nook, Kindle, Kobo, and select sections on Google Books.
The Way of Herbs by Michael Tierra (Simon & Schuster, 1998). Available on Nook, Kindle, Kobo, and select sections on Google Books.
—Natalie Brown and Steven Foster
References
1. Google Books. www.google.com/search?q=herbal&tbm=bks&tbo=1. Accessed June 22, 2011.
2. Biodiversity Heritage Library. www.biodiversitylibrary.org. Accessed June 22, 2011.
3. A Curious Herbal. Biodiversity Heritage Library. www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/571. Accessed June 22, 2011.
4. A Curious Herbal. AbeBooks.com. www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3144567750&searchurl=an%3Delizabeth%2Bblackwell%26bsi%3D30%26tn%3Da%2Bcurious%2Bherbal%26x%3D0%26y%3D0. Accessed June 22, 2011.
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