Bibliographies
Houghton staff maintain a record of bibliographical citations of works that discuss Houghton's early manuscripts. These citations are maintained in Zotero, a reference management software. They include peer-reviewed articles and monographs as well as blog posts and student projects.
Each entry in the citation library is tagged with the shelfmark(s) of manuscript(s) discussed therein. You can search and filter tags in the bottom left. To view all manuscripts of a specific subcollection, search and select the tag that includes 'All Items', e.g., MS Eng All Items or MS Richardson All Items.
While Zotero is viewable in any internet browser, you can also download the desktop client for free to sync with selected libraries. The desktop client has more functionality and allows you to export metadata. See this guide for more information on how to use Zotero.
Many of the citations in the Zotero library are for articles in the Harvard Library Bulletin, which is separately searchable in Harvard's institutional repository, DASH:
- Harvard Library BulletinEstablished in 1947, the HLB publishes peer-reviewed scholarly articles that reflect the research potential of Harvard Library collections and announcements of new collections & Library milestones. Make sure to keyword search 'This Collection' (rather than all of DASH).
Catalogues
Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Houghton Library, Harvard University by ISBN: 0866981853Publication Date: 1995Includes full descriptions of MSS Lat 1-379
Catalogue of the Icelandic manuscripts in the Houghton Library by Publication Date: 1978Covers manuscripts in Houghton Library, MS Icel 1-MS Icel 56 through the date of compilation.
Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in Houghton Library, Harvard University by ISBN: 0268201013Publication Date: 2022-01-15First full account of North America's largest collection of traditional Irish-language manuscripts. The manuscripts are a part of the age-old heritage of Irish book production, dating to the early Middle Ages. Handwritten works in Houghton contain versions of medieval poetry and sagas, recopied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to which period most of the library's documents belong.
Provenance
The immediate source of acquisition is noted in each manuscript's HOLLIS catalog record. Occasionally, other provenance will be recorded.
The Harvard Library Bulletin (linked above) may include relevant acquisition announcements. Some records related to acquisition or research may be maintained in internal curatorial files. We are typically able to provide access to these files for researchers. If you're interested in consulting a curatorial file, please contact us in advance of your reading room visit.
The following resources may also be useful for conducting provenance research:
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. Houghton Library accession books, 1941-1983Accession books for print and manuscript collections, organized by 'accession number' and including prices & source of acquisition. Sometimes a manuscript's accession number is noted in the HOLLIS record; often it can only be found on a label on the item itself.
- Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania)The SDBM continuously aggregates and updates observations of pre-modern manuscripts drawn from over 14,000 auction and sales catalogs, inventories, catalogs from institutional and private collections, and other sources that document the sales and locations of these books from around the world.
