research aids
Folger tooltips: "Narrow by collection" in the catalog
Want to quickly narrow down your catalog search by collection? Learn how in this post.
Folger Tooltips: Exporting a spreadsheet of catalog data
Tips on how to export data from the Folger catalog.
How to ask a reference question
Our new catalog is here!
In April we announced the preview of our new catalog, and now it is time to make it official: the new catalog is here! Visit it at https://catalog.folger.edu/. The new catalog! Huzzah! TIND ILS (Get comfy; this is a long…
Invitation to preview our new catalog
Psssst…. we’re working on a new online catalog for the Folger collection. Do you want to help out by having an early look? If so, please keep reading! The link is deliberately buried deep in this blog post because there’s…
The Folger G.K. Hall Catalogs, or How to fit an entire card catalog on your bookshelf
I had the good fortune of learning to do scholarly research during the transition from card catalogs to Online Public Access Catalogs or ‘OPAC’s, as they are known in libraries. I have a particular fondness for card catalogsSee also Abbie…
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A briefing on brevigraphs, those strange shapes in early printed texts
Most people reading this will know that “&” and “and” mean the same thing. Some will also know that the ampersand’s “&” shape originated from the handwritten word “et” (Latin for “and”). The “e” and the “t” are combined into…
24,000 “preliminary” catalog records are better than nothing!
At least, we hope the approximately 24,000 “preliminary records” added to the Folger’s online catalog yesterday are better than nothing, which is what Hamnet had for most of these books since going live in 1997. Today’s Collation post explains where…
Early Modern Digital Texts: a link roundup
The early modern textual landscape is broad and varied online, from full-text collections focused on a single genre or area of research, to in-depth examinations of the history of a famous text. In this post, we’ll explore a few of…
Enter Miranda: the Folger's new digital platform
“Admired Miranda! Indeed the top of admiration, worth What’s dearest to the world!” William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (3.1.47-50) Miranda’s home page offers a chance to search by format, genre, date ranges, or language. The Folger Shakespeare Library is thrilled to…
The Folger as a Collection of Collections
The next time a scholar of early modern Europe tells you that they don’t look to the Folger as their research home because they don’t work on Shakespeare, you might gently suggest that there are other parts of the Folger’s…
Manuscripts in libraries: catalog versus finding aid
When searching for manuscripts at the Folger—or pretty much any special collections library—it helps to know that manuscripts often lead a double life. Many exist simultaneously as part of a library, and as part of an archive, and libraries and archives have different…