Houghton Library printed book provenance file, R-Z and unidentified
Overview
Index to ownership/provenance information primarily from printed books at Houghton Library.
Dates
- Creation: 1942-1992
Creator
- Houghton Library (Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
To access this materials, please go to HOLLIS and search for the title of the specific book you would like to see, then make your requests to view it in the Houghton Reading Room via that record.
Extent
1 collectionCollection is comprised of the file indexes to ownership/provenance information found in printed books within Houghton Library that were cataloged prior to 1992. A very few manuscript codices are also included. It does not include books transferred from Widener Library and still identified by their Widener call numbers (circa 75,000 titles), or books accessioned but not fully cataloged (circa 35,000 titles).
Each entry includes the following information: Name or initials of owner, usually as it appears in the book; type of evidence of ownership; author, title, and date of the book; and finally the Houghton call number (e.g. *GC9.W4922.920b, Typ.715.67.274).
Ownership/provenance evidence includes: bookplates (often abbreviated as "plate"); signatures and initials within the book (often abbreviated as "autogr."); monograms; stamps, sometimes on the binding; labels; identified annotations; etc.
Biographical / Historical
This index originated as a card file maintained at the Library from 1942 to 1992. The card file was then closed, and information on ownership/provenance was entered only into the records in HOLLIS. As older records are updated in HOLLIS (Harvard's online catalog), provenance information is added, resulting in some overlap of ownership information in this file and in HOLLIS.
The card file consists of both typed and handwritten cards. The handwritten cards are often difficult to read, and errors of transcription are undoubtedly present.
Arrangement
Entries are alphabetized by the name, or initials, of the owner of the book.
No attempt has been made to regularize the various forms of the name found. Researchers are urged to check under variant forms of the name.
Other Finding Aids
Indexes A-D, E-K, and L-Q are available electronically in three additional Houghton finding aids: hou01529, hou01530, and hou01531.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Index created by the Houghton Library 1942-1992.
Processing Information
This finding aid was revised in 2024 to address outdated and harmful descriptive language. During that revision, contextualizing processing notes were added to the description of one item. For more information on reparative archival description at Harvard, see Harvard Library’s Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.
Creator
- Houghton Library (Organization)
- Title
- Houghton Library. Houghton Library printed book provenance file, R-Z, and unidentified: Index.
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou01543
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440
Houghton_Library@harvard.edu