Xylotheque

Project Xylotheque
A very small xylotheque, meant for children
Status	Initializing
Contact	Molenaar
Last Update	2021-01-15

What is it

A xylotheque is a collection of book-shaped wooden boxes. Each "book" tells about a certain tree, and is made from the wood of that tree. The spine of the book is made from its bark. Inside is usually a description on paper, and some characteristic parts or the tree, like twigs, seeds, leaves, etc.

A xylotheque was normally found at universities in the 18th century, for botany students. The one from the university of Harderwijk, for example, is on display in Enschede.

Why this one

Sawmill "De Salamander" has an educational centre that can be visited by school classes. As part of the educational activities, it would be nice to have a small xylotheque, both for historical and educational reasons. The visiting children can then learn about wood and trees in the same way as people learned it a few centuries ago.

The volumes of this small xylotheque will cover oak, beech and elm, as these types of wood are often processed at the sawmill. They will contain a ring binder, so we can insert and update more than one page of text and have room for pictures (like photos of grown trees) in the text. They will be larger than A4 pages, so there is also room for things like twigs and seeds.