Growing a Seed Library
By Brandon Patterson, Jennifer Macali, Gabrielle James, and Donna Baluchi
Walk into the Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah and you’ll be greeted by stacks of books, rows of study spaces, and a little seed library. The plastic containers filled with seeds of all variety, from asparagus to zucchini, serve as a metaphor for learning: growing a plant from seed that gives fruit is much like learners that enter in as novices and grow into health care providers. With stress more pervasive than ever, integrating a focus on wellness, including being outside and gardening, has known benefits that reduce burnout and bring joy. Also, preserving seeds and asking patrons to return seeds they harvest at the end of the season mirrors the library’s own efforts to preserve relevant local history related to health sciences and highlights patrons’ contributions to our collections. Lastly, the library serves as a central communal space available to people from all backgrounds to gather and connect around programming and services, like those around gardening and seeds. In sharing seeds and educational resources on how to grow food, seed libraries make traditional knowledge about growing plants more accessible to many who do not have a family member, school program, or other resource to get this information from. The seed library cycle of taking seeds, growing food, and returning seeds facilitates community building. The growing process which leads to conversations around food and diet provides important learning opportunities for a multitude of disciplines, from nutrition to dentistry.
A seed library is a collection of seeds that you can borrow to plant and grow. According to an article published in The Library Quarterly, the first contemporary seed library was created in 1999 at the Berkeley Ecology Center, and the first to be established in a library was at the Gardiner Public Library in New York. Since then, over 450 are found across the globe, including several found in and around libraries in Utah [1]. However, there is little to be found about seed libraries in academic or medical libraries.
So why start a seed library? A library inviting others to check out seeds can contribute to community-driven responses related to food, poverty, sustainability – and as a health-centered library – health and wellness. The Eccles Health Sciences Library has programming like the Climate Changes Health & Health Equity Series that introduce topics related to health, wellness and sustainability, so the seed library was a natural extension to this work. To begin the project, we sought funding through a wellness grant offered by the University and we partnered with a nutrition professor in the College of Nursing and the coordinator of the campus gardens to bring seeds to several areas around campus in addition to the library, including two food pantries dedicated to students. We aimed the program at increasing access to locally grown food, helping those that might be experiencing food insecurity, facilitating local plant resilience to disease, and promoting community well-being for students, staff and faculty.
From the perspective of an instructor and community organizer, the seed library is a safe space to gather communally to gain a deeper understanding about local botanicals and traditional growing practices. The opportunity to share seeds and gardening facilitates slowing down and observing the entire lifecycle of plants and flowers that nourish our bodies. For those who work in healthcare it is vitally important to connect with nature in this way; working directly with the earth, a person quickly gains a better understanding of how the environment directly contributes to wellness over time. Spending more time in nature as a healthcare provider parallels recent trends in providers recommending patients spend time in nature starting at a young age. This is one-way healthcare providers can practice as they prescribe [2].
For a member of the campus garden community, seed libraries help build resilient food communities. By sharing seeds and plants, we can alleviate some of the initial financial pressures of growing food. The cycle of seed libraries also has a sweetness, someone takes the seeds from a previous community member’s labor, then spends the season nurturing their plant(s), gaining food for their household and returning seeds from those plants to the library to feed the next person in the following season. This is intentional community care for people and land. Saving seeds year after year creates resilient plants that adapt to our local climate conditions, which then are easier to grow.
Since the beginning of our program in 2020, we’ve grown in several ways. We have shared hundreds of seeds, seedlings and small plants with our community. Students are now invested in the project and have volunteered to sort seeds and work in the campus gardens. The Eccles Health Sciences Library has connected with other seed library coordinators at surrounding public libraries to learn from their experience. The seed library has also garnered interest in complementary collections like a nearby medicinal garden and a historical medical botany collection.
To start a seed library, the authors recommend connecting with campus partners and wellness centers and coming up with a plan that works for your community. Towards the beginning of the growing season, consider starting small and having a few seed packets available near the front desk, while inviting others to bring in their seeds. Local seed distributors may be interested in donating slightly older seeds (it’s fine to plant seeds that are several years old as long as they have stayed in a dark, dry place). Think about public libraries in your area that might already have something similar to gain insight from. Existing storage already found around the library, even old card catalogs, serve as excellent containers. Decide on a way by which to operate, stock and arrange the seed collection – and have fun!
References
- Peekhaus W. Seed libraries: sowing the seeds for community and public library resilience. The Library Quarterly. 2018 July; 88(3):271-285. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/697706
- Kondo MC, Oyekanmi KO, Gibson A, South EC, Bocarro J, Hipp JA. Nature prescriptions for health: a review of evidence and research opportunities. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Jun; 17(12):4213. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17124213