Posts By: Julie Swierczek

Our new catalog is here!

June 1, 2022 | By Julie Swierczek

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/. TIND ILS (Get comfy; this is a long one. Feel free to scroll down to the New features and resources section if you want to skip to the bells and whistles!) The new catalog is powered by the TIND ILS (Integrated Library System).… Continue Reading

The Folger G.K. Hall Catalogs, or How to fit an entire card catalog on your bookshelf

September 16, 2021 | By Julie Swierczek

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 catalogs because they allow for precision and recall when searching. Keyword searches can retrieve an interesting scattershot set of results, but when someone stands in front of a card catalog and looks for a particular name, title, or subject, they can see exactly how many cards are in the catalog with the search term.… Continue Reading

Introducing the Folger Reference Image Collection

October 13, 2020 | By Julie Swierczek

Sometimes when people contact the Folger to ask questions about items in our collections, the easiest way to provide an answer is to take a quick photo of a particular detail. This has resulted in a growing collection of smartphone images of collections materials. We are now making them available in the Folger Reference Image Collection. These images are shared under the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication License (CC0 1.0), so anyone can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. … Continue Reading