Second printed catalog, 1773 Digital

This printed catalog, entitled Catalogus Librorum in Bibliotheca Cantabrigiensi Selectus, Prequentiorem in Usum Harvardinatum, qui Gradu Baccalaurei in Artibus Nondum Sunt Donati, was published in 1773. It was the first Harvard library catalog published after the devastating fire of 1764, and it was also the first American library catalog intended for an undergraduate audience. This catalog lists an abbreviated number of library volumes from the larger collection, supposedly those most appropriate and useful for undergraduates, and its publication came several years after the Library Laws of 1767 were passed at Harvard. Those laws allowed Junior Sophisters admission to the library for the first time (sophomores were granted the right to borrow books in 1795, and freshmen in 1814) and provided for the creation of a catalog of books in "common use." The catalog lists these volumes in a single alphabetical sequence and includes a shelf location for each volume.