Skip to main content

Harvard College Library

 Organization

Found in 21 Collections and/or Records:

Bookplates, approximately 1897-approximately 1932.

Series Identifier: HUF 523.406
Overview:

Bookplates designating book funds and collections from some of Harvard University's libraries.  Bookplates are chiefly from libraries that are administrative units of the Harvard College Library.

Harvard College Library deposit cards for special gifts

FOUND IN: Houghton Library
Collection — Box 1Identifier: 79M-51
Summary:

Collection includes index cards listing contents of materials deposited, and sometimes also donor information, restrictions, notes, and often includes letters relating to the collection. Many collections and books listed in these entries eventually became part of Houghton library when the Widener Library Treasure Room collection was transferred to Houghton; some of the materials were transferred elsewhere.

Early Catalogs and Shelflists of the Harvard College Library

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.15.30
Overview: This collection of early catalogs and shelflists of the Harvard College Library includes both printed and manuscript material. It contains at least one copy of each of the three printed library catalogs published in the eighteenth century, with related supplements; two sets of library alcove shelflists; numerous manuscript catalogs of the library, arranged either alphabetically or by subject, including one believed to have been in use during the College's evacuation to Concord during the...

Early Harvard College Librarian's papers

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.27.14
Overview: This collection contains an assortment of ten administrative records related to the Harvard College Library and the College Librarian (known in the 18th century as the Library Keeper), dating from 1715 to 1727. The documents consist of two payment orders for the salary of the library keeper in 1715 and 1721; a 1720 list of books sent by English merchant and Harvard benefactor Thomas Hollis; six financial records related to the preparation and printing of the 1723 printed catalog of the...

Harvard College Library bills and list of books purchased, 1877-1971

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.15.88.3
Overview: This collection belongs to a group of records called Library routine records, which generally includes ongoing series of records pertaining to day-to-day operations of the Harvard College Library, such as job applications, charging records, shelf lists, and bills. This collection contains invoices, bills, and other material presumably related to the purchase of books in the Harvard College Library from 1877 through 1971. Material is arranged chronologically in groups, and alphabetically...

Harvard College Library Catalogue Department subject files: Thomas Franklin Currier, 1894-1952

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.8.113.3.2
Overview: Thomas Franklin Currier (1873-1946), Harvard A.B. 1894, began his career as an assistant in the Harvard College Library's Catalogue Department in 1894, and was placed in charge of cataloging in 1902. Currier organized the Library catalog in preparation for the opening of Widener Memorial Library in 1915 and continued to refine the classification process throughout his career, uniting the tasks of shelf classification and cataloging. This collection is comprised of correspondence, a card...

Harvard College Library Circulation and Reference letters, 1919-1976

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.8.114.4
Overview:

This collection is comprised of correspondence of the Circulation and Reference Department of the Harvard College Library from 1919 to 1976. Correspondence is arranged in groups by academic year, and within groups, alphabetically by last name of correspondent. Topics presumably reflect the reference inquiries of particular correspondents.

Harvard Library Director Records: Alfred Claghorn Potter general files

Series Identifier: UAIII 50.8.10.3
Overview:

Alfred Claghorn Potter became Director of the Harvard Library in 1928. These records date from his administration of the Harvard libraries.

Harvard College Library letters

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.8
Overview: This collection documents the operation, growth, and professionalization of the Harvard College Library during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Records chiefly consist of bound scrapbooks of correspondence produced by or during the everyday functions of Harvard librarians and other library staff, regarding library building conditions (especially overcrowding in Gore Hall), acquisition and collection development, library finances, new policies for patron services and library...

Lists of books donated to the Harvard College Library by Thomas Hollis

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.27.61
Overview: Thomas Hollis V (1720-1774), widely known as Thomas Hollis of Lincoln's Inn, was a very generous donor to the Harvard College Library, particularly in the wake of a 1764 fire in Harvard Hall which destroyed most of the library's books and scientific instruments. This collection contains lists of titles (books and pamphlets) which Hollis shipped from England to Harvard between 1763 and 1770, as well as a "catalogue" of books from Hollis compiled in 1787. While these lists are not...

Lists of donations to the Harvard College Library, [1782]-1863

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.15.70.2
Overview:

Consists of manuscript lists of donations to the Harvard College Library from 1782 to 1863. Also includes scattered correspondence with donors offering books and other items to the Harvard College Library, and a compilation of donations to the Harvard College Library from 1770 to 1840 that was printed in Josiah Quincy's The History of Harvard University, published in 1840.

Harvard College Library Order Department letters, 1881-1976

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.8.116
Overview: This collection is comprised of correspondence and other material of the Order Department of the Harvard College Library from 1881-1976. Kept by members of the department including Librarian Justin Winsor and Assistant Librarians William Tillinghast, Alfred Claghorn Potter, and Clarence Eldon Walton, records consist of bound volumes of correspondence and organizational material, loose letters, microfilming records, and reports, and document the major acquisitions-related activities of the...

Outgoing Harvard College Library correspondence (copybooks)

Series Identifier: UAIII 50.8.5
Overview:

Copies of letters sent from the Harvard College Library.

Harvard College Library printing plates and blocks used in the production of bookplates

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.15.20.6
Overview:

This collection consists of engraved printing plates and blocks created for the production of bookplates for the Harvard College Library from the the mid-eighteenth through mid-twentieth centuries. Most plates and blocks indicate the names of donors and specified funds for Harvard College Library acquisitions. A limited amount of sample bookplates and related correspondence is also included in the collection.

Records of books spared from 1764 Harvard Hall fire and subsequent gifts

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.27.64
Overview: On the night of January 24, 1764, a devastating fire destroyed Harvard Hall, and with it Harvard College's collection of scientific instruments ("philosophical apparatus") and most of the books in its library. In the aftermath of the fire, librarians compiled lists of books which were in circulation and thus spared from the fire. They also kept lists of the many gifts and benefactions, large and small, which poured in from individuals and organizations to assist in the rebuilding of the...

Records of the Harvard College Library: Borrowing privileges correspondence

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.6.1
Overview:

This collection contains correspondence to the Harvard College librarian asking for book borrowing privileges, primarily from faculty and other individuals with a connection to the college, dated 1775 to circa 1826, and a 20th century dealer catalog entry for a 1764 letter related to donated volumes. The records include the borrower's name, the titles of the books borrowed, the date of loans, and in some cases, the return of books.

Records of the Harvard College Library : Library charging records, 1762-1897.

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.15.60
Overview:

These records document book borrowing from the Harvard College Library from 1762 to 1897. Book borrowers include Harvard faculty and students, tutors, overseers, proctors, administrators, employees, and prominent clergy, jurists, lawyers, doctors, and educators with connections to Harvard University. The records offer insight into the reading habits and intellectual life of New England's most educated thinkers.

Records of the Harvard College Library: William Coolidge Lane general files

Collection Identifier: UAIII 50.8.10.2
Overview: This collection documents the activities of William Coolidge Lane (1859-1931) as Librarian at Harvard from 1898 to 1928, and includes Harvard College Library material kept by Lane from the mid to late 1800s. The collection is comprised of correspondence, personal notes, newspaper clippings, pamphlets and brochures, photographs, and blueprints created in the course of Library business by Lane and members of the Harvard community, librarians and affiliates of other universities, and the...

Mechanicals and related records for Five centuries of books and manuscripts in modern Greek

FOUND IN: Houghton Library
Collection Identifier: MS Am 3149
Overview:

Mechanicals and related materials for an exhibition catalog written by Evro Layton and produced by the Harvard College Library.

Papers of Florence May Wyman Currier, 1898-1966

Collection Identifier: SC 129
Overview:

Diaries, school reports, reading log, "cheer" book, and photograph album of Florence May Wyman Currier, Radcliffe College Class of 1903.

Proofs and related material for Illuminated & Calligraphic Manuscripts

FOUND IN: Houghton Library
Collection Identifier: MS Typ 1261
Overview:

Proofs and related material for the exhibition catalog, Illuminated & Calligraphic Manuscripts.