The Canadian Landscape and Garden History Directory

J.V. Rahilly was an engineering librarian in Ontario.

Pleasance Crawford is a writer and researcher on landscape architecture and Canadian landscape and garden history. Sue Donaldson, a landscape architect teaching in the Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, has written papers and journal articles on topics in landscape history. They compiled this directory to help others interested in this emerging field find one another, exchange information, and keep abreast of current and proposed research projects.

The directory has four parts. Part I is an annotated alphabetical listing of 150 respondents to a 1981-82 questionnaire. It includes not only addresses but brief descriptions of past, present, and future Canadian garden and landscape history research. Part II is a seven-page bibliography of those publications in the field cited by respondents. Parts III and IV are indices which group respondents by province and in 21 broad interest categories.

The directory has been set up in computer-readable form, and the editors state that they plan periodic updates. The format is clear and easy to read, but the listings contain some minor typographical errors that should be corrected in future editions. The interest categories in the index could be expanded, to make individual listings more accessible. All in all, nevertheless, the directory seems to serve its stated purpose well. For more complete bibliographies, however, researchers should also refer to two works by Edwinna von Baeyer (who is listed in the directory): A Preliminary Bibliography for Garden History in Canada (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1983; revision in progress) and Rhetoric and Roses: A History of Canadian Gardening 1900-1930 (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1984).