HOLLIS Catalog

HOLLIS and HOLLIS Classic

Subject Searching:
To do a systematic topic search in HOLLIS, search any reasonable keywords, choose pertinent records, and look at the Subject terms. These are terms chosen by the Library of Congress to express the subject matter of the book. Once you find the proper term for your topic, redo the search using that term.

The Library of Congress subject system is complex, and often there will be several pertinent Subject terms. For example, as well as Censorship the following Subject terms may apply:
Bengali imprints -- Bibliography
Bengali literature -- Censorship -- History
Book industries and trade -- France -- History -- 19th century
Cable television -- Censorship -- United States
Catholic Church. Congregatio Indicis.
Censorship -- Cross-cultural studies
Censorship -- France -- History
Censorship -- History -- 16th century
Censorship -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
Censorship -- Vatican City -- History
Challenged books -- United States -- History
Communication policy -- United States
Drama -- Censorship -- England
Early printed books -- 16th century
English drama -- Censorship -- Dictionaries
Erotic literature -- Dictionaries -- French
France -- Intellectual life -- 18th century
Freedom of expression -- France -- History -- 18th century
Freedom of information -- Arab countries
Freedom of speech -- Arab countries
German literature -- 20th century -- Censorship
Government and the press -- India.
Index librorum prohibitorum.
India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947
Inquisition -- History -- Sources
Intellectual freedom -- Arab countries
Libraries -- Censorship -- United States
Literature and state -- France -- History
Mass media -- Censorship -- United States
Motion pictures -- Censorship -- Germany (West)
National socialism and literature
Politics and literature -- Germany
Pornography -- Social aspects -- United States
Prohibited books -- India -- Bengal
Prohibited books (Canon law)
Radio Liberty (Munich, Germany)
Stadtbibliothek Koblenz (Germany) -- Catalogs
Theater -- Censorship -- England -- Dictionaries
Underground literature -- Soviet Union -- Bibliography

Subject Browsing:
In HOLLIS Classic, if you enter "Censorship" in the basic search screen as a Subject beginning with... search, you will retrieve the Subject "Censorship" broken down to show various aspects. This is often very useful.

Lists of Form/Genre and Subject terms are available at Library of Congress Subject Headings PDF Files

Primary Source Terms:
Several of these added terms (called subdivisions) indicate primary sources:
--Archives
--Correspondence
--Description and travel
--Diaries
--Interviews
--Manuscripts
--Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
--Personal narratives (refers to accounts of wars and diseases only)
--Sources (usually refers to collections of published primary sources)
e.g., Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924 -- Manuscripts -- Indexes.
Note: Do not enter hyphens (--) into HOLLIS or HOLLIS Classic keyword searches.

Scanning the Shelves Online
Books on the shelf can be browsed remotely using HOLLIS Classic. Browsing the actual shelves allows you to dip into books and immediately gauge their value. You will, however, miss any books that are checked out or in the Harvard Depository. You can often browse these too, although you cannot dip, by using the call number search. On the basic search screen, adjust the menu to Call number (Library of Congress) or other system including Widener call number.

Find the call numbers for your search by doing keyword searches or subject browses and noting the call numbers for appropriate items.

The Library of Congress Classification is available online.

Scan & Deliver
You can request that periodical articles and sections of books (up to 30 pages) be scanned and the pdf emailed to you. Hit the Scan & Deliver link in the HOLLIS record Availability section. More about the Scan & Deliver service.

For more on HOLLIS.

There is a good deal of material in the Kress Collection of Business and Economics at the Baker Library, Harvard Business School acquired too late to appear in The Making of the Modern World which is not included in HOLLIS. There is much material on th environment of economics and business: social conditions, politics, public health, trade and transport, etc. This material is accessed via a card file at the Baker Library Historical Collections.

Bibliographies

Look for specialized subject bibliographies in the HOLLIS Catalog: Search, e.g., <"prohibited books" [Keyword search] and bibliography [Subject Keyword search]> on Expanded Search screen or in WorldCat.

If Harvard Doesn't Have It

  • Look in Borrow Direct (below).
  • If not in Borrow Direct, look in WorldCat (below), and submit an Interlibrary Loan request
    • When in WorldCat, find the Series field on the WorldCat record. If your book is a volume in a series, Harvard may own the whole series and have one HOLLIS record for the series, rather than a record for each volume
  • If pre-1923, look in HathiTrust, Google Books, Internet Archive, and Digital Public Library of America
  • Submit a purchase request in HOLLIS. If it is a very new book, we may have received it, but it is not in HOLLIS yet.

Borrow Direct

Harvard recently joined Borrow Direct which is a service allowing expedited interlibrary loan (within four days) for books held by Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale. Books (not journals, dvds, etc.) are located and ordered through the Borrow Direct catalog. Books which Harvard owns but which are checked out or marked non-circulating (providing they are circulating at another library) are available via Borrow Direct.

WorldCat

For material not available at Harvard, search in: WorldCat (the OCLC Union Catalog) which includes catalog records from over 45,000 libraries worldwide but largely U.S. Includes books, periodicals, archives and manuscripts, maps, videotapes, computer readable files, etc. Includes Boston-area libraries.

Importance of WorldCat:

  • 1. Subject searching beyond Harvard. For periodicals: Advanced search. Document type-Serial Publications
  • 2. Clues for finding items in the HOLLIS Catalog, e.g., volumes in monograph series for which HOLLIS has only one record for the whole series.
  • 3. Finding non-Harvard books in Boston-area libraries.
  • 4. Verifying references for InterLibrary Loan. Give them the Accession no. at the bottom of the record.

Other Collective Catalogs

Theatrum Catalogorum collates early modern books in library catalogs from every major European country

Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog searches simultaneously or individually the holdings of major libraries in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK and the German Union Catalog of Serials, German book trade catalogs, and German Books in Print.

Limitations:

  • Lack of subject headings
  • Many libraries not retrospectively converted.
  • Karlruhe sometimes cannot connect to the French and Italian catalogs

Catalogue Collectif de France contains:

  • Catalogue des Fonds des Bibliothèques Municipales Rétroconvertis
  • BnF catalogue général
  • Catalogue du Système Universitaire de Documentation/Sudoc

Copac National, Academic, and Specialist Library Catalogue is a collective catalog of numerous British libraries.

English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), 1473-1800, has over 470,000 catalog (no full text) entries listing books, periodicals, newspapers and some ephemera printed before 1801. Works published in Britain, Ireland, British colonies, and the US are included, together with items printed elsewhere which contain significant text in English, Welsh, Irish or Gaelic. Books falsely claiming London publication are included. Many of the included works are available full text in Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online. More information on EEBO and ECCO.

Istituto Centrale per il catalogo Unico: Indice SBN

Heritage of the Printed Book (c. 1455-1830) includes records for early books in European libraries. More on the the HPB Database.

Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalog (1801-1919) offers citations of major research library holdings on all print materials published in the U. S. and British Empire, all books in English wherever published, and translations from English.