Folger Tooltips: Introduction

Pierre Lombart engraving of the playwright William Cartwright

Greetings Dear Readers!

Welcome to the first in a series of “tooltips” about how to access and best utilize online resources for conducting research at (or away from) the Folger Shakespeare Library. New bibliographic records and finding aids, and new tools for researchers, are continually in the works.  Some of our collection descriptions and digital toolsets are created in-house, such as the bibliographic records describing 82 First Folios (and fragments). Others draw on descriptive records or software platforms developed elsewhere, such as our Digital Image Collection, made available through a software package developed by a company called Luna Imaging. Regardless, we are eager to respond to feedback, make corrections, and help ensure that our online resources are meeting your needs.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for Folger tooltips by a variety of staff members on resources such as:

• Hamnet: Folger Shakespeare Library Online Catalog, our primary database describing the library’s holdings.
• Our growing Digital Image Collection, where you can find zoomable and share-able high resolution images from the collection.
• Our Finding Aids Database, providing access to detailed descriptions of many of our manuscripts and other special collections.
• The Union First Line Index of English Verse: 13th-19th Century (bulk 1500-1800), providing cross-institutional access to the first lines of manuscript (and some printed) verse held by the Folger and other contributing institutions.
• The PLRE.Folger: Private Libraries in Renaissance England database, which complements research in the printed volumes of Private libraries in Renaissance England : a collection and catalogue of Tudor and early Stuart book-lists (PLRE).
• And much more!

The goal of this series of posts is to better enable you, whether local or remote, registered as a Reader at the Folger or not, to make use of our collections and tools in your own research.

And of course we’ll encourage you to share your own “how-to” questions and tips in the comments.