HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION AND THE CATALOGUES
During the first phase of the project, from 1999 to 2006, the card catalogue containing details of all the publications acquired by the Library between 1950 and 1984, was transferred to the online catalogue.
Now in its second phase the project is tackling the conversion of the printed catalogue, which lists twelve decades’ worth of Library acquisitions from its foundation in 1841 to 1950, when additions to the printed catalogue were abandoned in favour of cataloguing new acquisitions on cards in order to keep the catalogue constantly up-to-date.
Over these twelve decades the Library’s collections, and the space required to house them, grew enormously. The printed catalogues increased accordingly both in size and in the level of detail they provided. As Hagberg Wright says in the preface to his 1903 catalogue “the progress of the Library may be practically measured by the increasing bulk of its Catalogue.”
To make the collections easier to navigate several subject indices were also published over the years.
1840s ---- 1850s ---- 1860s ----- 1870s ---- 1880s ---- 1890s
1900s ---- 1910s ---- 1920s ----- 1930s ---- 1940s ---- 1950s
