For Kew, its intranet represents a key platform for information connectivity, providing a basis for integration previously denied by software incompatibilities. The prudent application of IT can elevate expertise to its rightful place, focusing expertise more fully on interpretation and application of information. Kew's library and archives, a relatively static information resource amassed over more than two centuries, is unique botanically, historically, socially and culturally. But it is not a museum piece. Accessing this information presents different challenges which have given rise to a new generation of information professionals, individuals who know where to find information, and what important connections and relationships exist.
Innovation stems from people and their ability to see a better future.
Surveys of the Kew and Wakehurst sites have recorded all trees in the gardens areas, and Arboretum staff now use the FIS to survey new trees as they are planted. At Wakehurst previously unaccessioned woodland matrix trees have been incorporated into the database. Although current effort is concentrated on tree surveys, the mapping system is capable of recording any plant. Steve Ruddy, working with Ken Bailey, Dr Tony Cox and Sarah Edwards, has developed software to enable staff to display LCD records from 'clickable' tree maps or to generate plant maps from database queries. The use of internet technology will, in the future, provide the means to supply this information via the World Wide Web.