Early Catalogs and Shelflists of the Harvard College Library

The origins of the Harvard College Library can be traced to the College's namesake, John Harvard. Following his death from tuberculosis on September 14, 1638, Harvard's library of four hundred volumes, along with half of his estate, was given to the newly-established college subsequently named in his honor. These books were the College's first library collection. By 1642 the library was housed in what was known as the Old College building, where Grays Hall now stands, which was described as "having in it a spacious Hall (where they meet daily at Commons, Lectures, Exercises), and a large Library with some Bookes to it, the gifts of divers of our friends." The library was located on the second floor, in the southeast chamber. In the summer of 1676, the library was moved to the so-called New College and housed in Harvard Hall, where it would remain until that building was destroyed by fire almost a century later (see below). The library collection continued to grow in its new home, holding approximately 3,500 volumes by the time the first printed catalog was produced in 1723, and an additional 600 volumes by the time a second supplement to that first catalog was printed in 1735. By the time of the fire in 1764, the library contained over 5,000 volumes.

On the night of January 24, 1764, Harvard Hall (sometimes referred to as "Old Harvard Hall," as another building named Harvard Hall was later built) burned to the ground, destroying all of the volumes in the library except for the approximate 400 which were then out on loan and another 100 or so books which had been received but were not yet unpacked and shelved. This fire took place during the College's winter vacation, while the Massachusetts General Court was temporarily holding session in the building due to a smallpox epidemic in Boston. Apparently a fire was left burning in the library's fireplace and spread to the floor beams, quickly destroying the entire building and its contents. The General Court took responsibility for the loss of the building and agreed to pay for its replacement. The burning of the library prompted an immediate and tremendous outpouring of generosity from myriad other sources, which included both financial donations and thousands of new books. By the time a new home for the library - Harvard Hall - was completed in 1766, the size of the library collection had surpassed what it was before the fire just two years earlier.

The library was located in the upper west chamber of the new Harvard Hall, with books arranged on shelves within alcoves. Some of these alcoves were designated to hold the volumes donated by specific benefactors, including Thomas Hollis, John Hancock, the Province of New Hampshire (whose General Assembly voted to donate £300 previously allocated for the creation of New Hampshire's own university to Harvard instead), the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, Lieutenant Governor William Dummer, Harvard Treasurer Thomas Hubbard, Jasper Mauduit, and Thomas Wibird. There were initially ten alcoves in the library, though that number increased as the collection grew. By 1790, when the third printed catalog was published, the library contained over 12,000 volumes. The library remained in Harvard Hall into the nineteenth century, expanding to comprise the entire second floor in 1815 when commons and recitation were moved to the newly completed University Hall.

The catalogs, shelflists, and other materials in this collection represent Harvard librarians' ongoing efforts to maintain physical and intellectual control over a rapidly growing collection at a time when there were no established standards for cataloging and no professional training to help them with their task. Annotations and corrections to the catalogs (manuscript and printed) demonstrate that these were active records, continually used to track deletions and additions to the library's holdings. As the collection grew, problems of storage and cataloging became increasingly complex. The short duration of most librarians' tenure - very often only one or two years - certainly also contributed to difficulties in organizing, cataloging, and locating the volumes in a consistent and accurate manner.

This collection contains at least one copy of each of the three printed catalogs of the Harvard College Library produced in the eighteenth century: that of 1723 (with its printed supplements from 1725 and 1735), that of 1773, and that of 1790. It also contains alcove lists, which list the titles found on each shelf in each alcove; manuscript catalogs, arranged either alphabetically or by subject; and catalogs listing pamphlets, then known as "tracts," in the library collections. These materials provide insight not only into the contents of the library at any given time, but also into the challenges of arranging and describing those contents in a way that provided sufficient and efficient access to users.

Many of the catalogs and shelflists in this collection include shelf locations for some or all of the volumes listed. For example, a shelf location of 4.3.12 would indicate that a volume was located on the fourth bookcase, on the third shelf from the bottom (shelves were numbered from lowest to highest), and in the twelfth location on that shelf. Some shelf locations begin with a fourth number, which indicates the alcove within which the shelf was located. The last element of the shelf number was often written on the fore-edge of a book, which indicates that books were - at least in the library's earliest years - shelved with their spines inward. The shelf marks were also written, often in ink, on the flyleaf or title page of the volumes.

The following is a list of the individuals who served as Librarian in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The librarian was often a recent graduate, junior fellow, College tutor, or resident bachelor. In addition to the care and circulation of books, the librarian was responsible for the care of benefactors' portraits, marble and plaster busts of writers and classical subjects, and the so-called philosophical apparatus (scientific equipment) housed within the library. No salary was paid to those who held the position prior to 1693.

1667-1672

Solomon Stoddard

1674

Samuel Sewall

1674-1676

Daniel Gookin

1676-1679

Daniel Allin

1679-1681

Daniel Gookin

1681-1690

John Cotton

1690-1693

Henry Newman

1693-1697

Ebenezer Pemberton

1697-1701

Nathaniel Saltonstall

1701-1702

Anthony Stoddard

1702-1703

Josiah Willard

1703-1706

John Whiting

1706-1707

John Gore

1707-1709

Nathaniel Gookin

1709-1712

Edward Holyoke

1712-1713

Thomas Robie

1713-1714

John Denison

1714-1718

John Rogers

1718-1720

William Welsteed

1720-1721

William Cooke

1721-1722

Joshua Gee

1722-1723

Mitchell Sewall

1723-1726

John Hancock

1726-1728

Stephen Sewall

1728-1729

Joseph Champney

1729-1730

Joseph Pynchon

1730-1734

Henry Gibbs

1734-1735

Samuel Coolidge

1735-1737

James Diman

1737

Samuel Cooke

1737-1741

Thomas Marsh

1741-1742

Belcher Hancock

1742-1743

Benjamin Prat

1743-1748

Matthew Cushing

1748-1750

Oliver Peabody

1751-1753

Stephen Badger

1753-1755

John Rand

1755-1757

Mather Byles

1757-1758

Elizur Holyoke

1758-1760

Edward Brooks

1760-1762

Samuel Deane

1762-1763

Stephen Sewall

1763-1767

Andrew Eliot

1767-1768

Jonathan Moore

1768

Nathaniel Ward

1768-1769

Caleb Prentice

1769-1772

William Mayhew

1772-1787

James Winthrop

July 19-September 24, 1787

Thaddeus Mason Harris (interim librarian)

1787-1791

Isaac Smith

1791-1793

Thaddeus Mason Harris

1793-1800

Samuel Shapleigh