The Harvard Library: Historical Sources

Harvard Library materials from the 17th and 18th centuries include catalogs, donation lists, and administrative records. Many of the collections listed below have been digitized and high-resolution images of the materials can be found in the online finding aids. For additional guidance to the Harvard University Archives' collections of colonial materials, please see the research guides "Harvard in the 17th and 18th centuries" and "The Tolman Index to University records."

• Early Library records and catalogs
  • Reports to the Board of Overseers, 1650, 1685, 1761-1854. [Call number: UAII 10.5]
  • Early catalogs and shelflists of the Harvard College Library, 1723-1822. [Call number: UAIII 50.15.30]
  • Mr. Marsh’s catalogue, ca. 1764. [Call number: UAIII 50.27.37]

• Papers of early Harvard librarians
  • Early Harvard College Librarian's papers, 1715-1727. [Call number: UAIII 50.27.14]
  • Papers of Henry Ware Sr., 1783-1842. [Call number: HUG 1871]
  • Papers of William Croswell, 1776-1834. [Call number: HUG 1306.5]: In particular see series “Records related to work on the Harvard College Library catalogue, 1795-1824”
  • Papers of James Winthrop related to the Harvard College Library, 1780-1801. [Call number: UAIII 50.27.72]
  • Thaddeus Mason Harris' working documents regarding subject-based library catalog, ca. 1790. [Call number: UAIII 50.27.91]

• Donations
  • “Catalogue of John Harvard’s Library” by Alfred Claghorn Potter (1919) in the John Harvard Family Collection [Call number: HUG 1447 Box 4]
    • "Catalogue of John Harvard’s Library" by Alfred Claghorn Potter. In: Transactions of The Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Volume 21 (1919)
    • The original catalogue transcribed in the article can be found in: College Book I, 1639-1795. [Call number: UAI 5.5 Box 1].
  • List of books donated to the Harvard College Library by Thomas Hollis, 1763-1787. [Call number: UAIII 50.27.61]
  • A catalogue of books [donated by Jasper Mauduit] in the library of Harvard College [at] Cambridge in New England, 1765 [Call number: UAIII 50.27.65]

• The fire of 1764: A devastating event in the early years of the College was the burning down of Old Harvard Hall on January 24, 1764. The building housed the College's library of approximately 5,000 volumes.
  • Records of books spared from 1764 Harvard Hall fire and subsequent gifts, 1764-1778. [Call number: UAIII 50.27.64]
  • An Account of the fire at Harvard-College, in Cambridge; with the loss sustained thereby” from the Massachusetts Gazette February 2, 1764. [Call number: HUY 129]