Dance notation is one of those tricky subjects which has been discussed for centuries: no matter how you write it down, you’re sure to miss something important. I’ve discussed some examples here in in the blog, particularly regarding Feuillet notation (which was a particular interest of Professor Ward’s). But sometimes folks just take things into…
Four finding aids for newly accessioned or cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month. Newly cataloged by: Irina Klyagin and Christine Jacobson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana papers on Soviet theater and film and university lecture notes, 1902-1955 (MS Thr 402) Minimally Processed by: Melanie Wisner Tina Howe papers, circa 1958-2015 (MS…
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Marijuana monthly is a periodical unsurprisingly devoted to all things marijuana. Smuggling, growing, dealing, legal cases and aspects, and even some curious adventures that the staff experienced. One of the included articles reveals a story of aerial marijuana…
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Sometimes it is uncanny how we find materials in the collection that relate to popular culture right now, this week in fact. I recently watched the new Netflix series Stranger Things, a nostalgic 1980s show which features isolation tanks and…
Not long ago, Houghton Library acquired a copy of the first half of an edition of the works of Thomas Aquinas printed in Basel by Michael Wenssler in 1485 (Inc 7508) – the first half, I say, because the collection was issued in three parts, of which the second itself consisted of two parts, and…
Isn’t it always the way, that once one begins opening boxes, all kinds of surprising things appear. This was certainly the case with our recent Hidden Collections grant, to survey all of our historical sheet music collections. Our sheet music had for years been shelved in an end-of-Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-warehouse-y kind of situation, awaiting the time and…
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items recently cataloged from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. As the title suggests this is an entertaining read on the history, legends, and facts regarding beer along with clever illustrations. The self-proclaimed “beer king” Alan Eames covers everything from the invention of beer, drinking habits of…
Of the nearly four hundred bound sheet music volumes held in Houghton, many were owned by the same person – there are at least seven owned by Edith Forbes Perkins, for example, and over a dozen by Catharine Dean Flint. Just as interesting, however, are single volumes, one of which is highlighted below….
Most bound volumes in our collection that are about one inch thick contain between thirty and forty individual pieces. This volume, unassuming as it is, contains ninety three….
With one of this summer’s Pforzheimer fellowships came the opportunity for frequent trips to a remote corner of Houghton Library’s sub-basement level, where several hundred bound sheet music volumes lay waiting to be catalogued. Thanks to Dana Gee’s extraordinary work with the Hidden Collections Sheet Music project, tens of thousands of loose sheet music scores…
