Digital inventories of Parks and Gardens

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L’institut Européen des Jardins & Paysages a été fondé par la Fondation des Parcs et Jardins de France, le département du Calvados et la MRSH (université de Caen Normandie) en 2013. Il a pour objet la promotion et la valorisation de l’art des jardins en Europe et se donne notamment pour mission d’identifier et de collecter les inventaires et les archives des jardins des différents pays européens partenaires du projet.

The collaboration with the Digital Document Center (MRSH) was born from this ambition to network the documentation collected via a portal accessible to the public. With the help of the European Scientific Action Committee, the center designs and produces the technical tools and methods necessary for the analysis, structuring and dissemination of data relating to the art of gardens in Europe.

In July 2024, the French inventory presenting 12,910 descriptive garden records and 1,289 archive records was opened to the public in the form of a website built using the Pleade software package.
The data, after analysis of the sources and the creation of adjoining computer systems, were structured in XML-EAD ​​language (encoding standard for archival data). The Digital Document division has also developed tools to facilitate navigation: advanced search allowing cross-requests on all or part of the funds by criteria or keywords, a map geolocating all the gardens in order to understand their distribution over the territory and a precise map of each garden defining these contours.

Similar work is carried out for the analysis and processing of inventories from other European countries: aspiration and analysis of data, creation of tools to carry out their exploitation, structuring and encoding then exposure on the Pleade software package after its configuration.

The inventory of parks and gardens in Portugal (put online in September 2015) presents 729 gardens, that of Belgium – Flanders 820 gardens (opened in July 2016), the site of Belgium – Wallonia, 1,035 gardens (accessible since December 2016) and the inventory of England, put online in December 2018, highlights 1,699 exceptional gardens and the inventory of Italy (online in April 2024) 2,254 gardens..

The sites are updated regularly and added new features, photographs and data. Inventories from other European countries are gradually being added to those already present to constitute the first online European digital inventory relating to gardens.