PURPOSE AND GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

This assignment serves to familiarize you with Zotero, Hamnet (the Folger’s online catalogue), and with the resources available to you at your home library.

Before you complete this assignment, you will need to do the following:

  1. Download Zotero (If you don't use the Firefox browser, you'll also need to download and use Firefox, as Zotero only works inside Firefox)
  2. Read through the Zotero instructions as assigned on the syllabus. Note that while this assignment provides brief instructions (in bold) below for using Zotero to organize your answers into a Zotero collection and generate a bibliography from the collection, these instructions aren't meant to substitute for reading the Zotero instructions and will not be sufficiently helpful on their own.
  3. Familiarize yourself with the Help section of HAMNET (http://shakespeare.folger.edu/help/search.htm) and with Dr. Georgianna Ziegler’s handout on “Rare Book Searching in HAMNET” (appended to this assignment).

YOUR MISSION


I. HAMNET
First: make your Zotero folder and subfolders for this assignment.
  1. Create a folder in your Zotero “My library” called “pre-seminar assignment.” You can either click on the add folder icon in the very left of the Zotero window pane bar or right click (control + click on a Mac single-button mouse).
  2. Right click (control + click on a Mac single-button mouse) on the created folder “pre-seminar assignment” and make subcollections A, B, C, D.
A. Using Hamnet (http://shakespeare.folger.edu/webvoy.htm), identify 3 books in the Folger collection that fall into a research category that interests you and save the bibliographic entries to your Zotero library. You might, for example, look for books in a subject in which you expressed interest in your application essay to the seminar. Your three books should all have been published in England before 1660. You should begin with a Subject search. However, because subject searches do not catch all relevant works, also try keyword searches using the Set Limits feature to restrict results to books published before 1660.

Zotero: When you have your your three entries, save them in your “pre-seminar assignment” subcollection A folder by dragging them from your “My library” collection into that folder.

Tip: If you have open in Zotero a particular collection or subcollection folder, whatever you add to Zotero will go to that folder automatically, as well as to your “My library” collection. You might try this method for the following sections.

B. Next, identify one reference work that is relevant to your class of books.

Zotero: save it in your “pre-seminar assignment” subcollection B folder.

C. Identify two recent scholarly works that deal with your category of books.

Zotero: save them in your “pre-seminar assignment” subcollection C folder.

D. Finally, find one book in your category that has some special extra-textual features, such as illustrations.

Zotero: save it in your “pre-seminar assignment” subcollection D folder.


Now: generate your bibliography.
  1. Open your zotero window pane in your browser.
  2. Right click on collection A (control+click for a Mac single-button mouse).
  3. Select from the menu “generate a bibliography from the collection”
  4. Select a note style (MLA is fine) and select “save to clipboard.”
  5. Paste the results into a word processor document. Label at the top “part A.”
  6. Repeat for parts B - C, with the heading in step 5 labeled accordingly.

II. YOUR HOME LIBRARY

E. Go through the bibliography you've created above, and check whether your home library also has that book or journal. Following the bibliographic entry, write either “in home library” or “not in home library.”

F. What electronic resources related to the study of early modern literature do you have at your home library? These can be either subscriber or free databases?

G. Bonus: can you find a book, journal or other resource relevant to your topic that is in your home library, but not in the Folger? If so, what is it?


Georgianna Ziegler, Head of Reference
Reference@folger.edu / Jan2010

Rare Book Searching in Hamnet: http://shakespeare.folger.edu

The Folger online catalog offers searching over many fields to enable you to perform much more specific searches than most library catalogs allow. This detailed function is especially useful for finding rare materials. It enables searches such as the following:
- early books printed in France with engravings
- books containing booksellers’ advertisements
- books with hands drawn in
- early English quarto volumes – and much more

1. What’s in a Name?

By searching a Name, you can find out what people have written or translated, what books they have owned or inscribed, and even what books they received.

Example: Do a search on Evelyn, John in the Name field.


2. Finding Books by Size

You can find quarto (4to), octavo (8vo), duodecimo (12mo) and sextodecimo (16mo) sized books by searching under Size in Advanced Search. It is best to set Limits first, by date, or place of printing, or language, or a combination of these. Try searches by 4to and 4ø.

Example: Find quarto sized volumes printed in Paris from 1550 to 1650.


3. Finding Books with Illustrations

Use the Physical Description Keyword field to find books with illustrations or engravings or woodcuts.

Example: Find early works on Italy with illustrations. (Set Limits Date Range = 1500-1650; Search on Italy as Subject Keyword and ill? as Physical Description Keyword OR on Illus? in Form/Genre term)


4. Finding Books with Interesting Attributes – Using Genre Terms

Genre Terms are used by catalogers to point out interesting physical aspects of books such as the following:
Annotations
Booksellers advertisements
Made-up copies (An imperfect book that has pages added to it from one or more other copies of the same book to make it perfect.)
Manuscript waste or Printed Waste (waste paper used by binders)
Prices

Example: Find booksellers advertisements in books printed 1600-1650. (Set Limits Date Range = 1600-1650; Search on booksellers advertisements as a phrase in Form/Genre Keyword)



5. Finding Books with Interesting Attributes – Using Folger Copy Notes

Not every aspect of a book is picked up by genre terms. Many copies of books in the Folger collections have interesting marks or information about former owners that are mentioned by catalogers in the Folger copy notes.

You can search in the notes for all sorts of information, including the following:
- fists (pointy hands) – What Bill Sherman calls “manicules”
- “hidden names”:
- books owned by women – do searches on any female names and see what
comes up – limit first by date and/or place of printing
- artist’s name – do search on Cerceau for example
- books with manuscript annotations
- armorial bindings
- marbled paper (in binding)
- bookplates
- dedications (search word “dedication” under All Notes)

Sample Mixed Searches

Spanish books
Limit to language = Spanish; Date range = 1575-1700
Search on London as Published/Created Place - get 7 results
If use same date limit but search on Madrid as place, get 17 results

Early Catholic books
Search on Catholic books [as a phrase] in Bibliographic citation – pulls up anything in Allison & Rogers and McAlpin (two basic catalogs of early Catholic books)
Limit date range 1500-1700 – result 108
Note: if you don’t limit by date, you’ll get all the modern facsimiles in the Recusant reprint series

General Information on Rare Books with Links
http://lib.nmsu.edu/rarecat/

Online Glossaries of Terms for Books and Manuscripts

British Library
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/glossary.asp

Antiquarian Booksellers Association
http://www.abaa.org/books/abaa/abaapages/glossary

Glossary of Binding Terms
http://www.philobiblon.com/gbwarticle/bindterm.htm