Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Belatedly, I will add that we too have accepted the donation of a
bookseller's card index, as a bibliographical resource. The index in our
case was that of Wheldon & Wesley, British natural-history booksellers, and
documents the firm's stock and sales from about 1950 to 2005 when the firm
went out of business and sold off its remaining assets through Maggs in
London. A curator at the Smithsonian purchased the card file (approx.
100,000 cards in their metal file drawers) and donated it to the Smithsonian
Institution Libraries to ensure that it would remain available to
researchers, as it had been at the W & W shop.
The firm is sadly missed in the natural-history world, and the card file
was of special, perhaps sentimental, interest to us since W & W had acted as
the Institution's European book agent for about 100 years until the 1950s.
A slightly longer description of the card file and the donation was
published in the Archives of natural history 33(1), 2006: 176.
Leslie Overstreet
PLEASE NOTE new phone and e-mail
(Ms.) Leslie K. Overstreet
Curator of Natural-History Rare Books
Smithsonian Institution Libraries
P.O. Box 37012
NHB CE-G15 / MRC 154
Washington DC 20013-7012
phone: (202) 633-1176
fax: (202) 633-0219
e-mail: overstreetl@si.edu
http://www.sil.si.edu/libraries/cullman
>>> ejh@GROLIERCLUB.ORG 12/11/06 11:29AM >>>
This may not be exactly what you're after, but as part of larger
archival collections the Grolier Club has accepted numerous card
files created by antiquarian bookdealers to record customers and
stock. We also have a number of other card files created by
bibliographers and collectors as indexes.
Regards,
Eric Holzenberg
At 11:22 AM 12/11/2006, you wrote:
>I know card catalogs have been dispensed with, or consigned to back
>rooms to collect dust, but has anyone ever accepted a card catalog,
>or a variation, for example a card catalog created as an index, for
donation?
>Thank you for your help.
>Michael Osborne
>Michael J. Osborne Books LLC
Eric Holzenberg
Director
The Grolier Club
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
phone: 212/838-6690
fax: 212/838-2445
e-mail: ejh@grolierclub.org
website: <http://www.grolierclub.org/>www.grolierclub.org