Autographs in Special Collection Materials
Autograph of Henry James from an early 20th century autograph collection. |
Although the department of Special Collections does not maintain a formal autograph collection, autographs of famous as well as lesser-known persons may be found in two principal collections and also traced in our online catalog:
The Hesburgh Collection
The Theodore M. Hesburgh Collection includes more than 1600 books presented to University President Emeritus Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. over the course of his long career and continues to receive new volumes on a monthly basis. Nearly all of the items in the collection contain personal inscriptions from the authors to Fr. Hesburgh.
Included in this collection are works by many notable politicians, writers and celebrities such as Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Ann Landers, Studs Terkel and Carl Sagan. See the collection description for instructions on how to search our online catalog for these and other names.
The Autograph Collection
Collection description coming soon...
How to Search for Autographs in Aleph
For many years signatures and other manuscript notations that appeared in pre-1800 books were recorded in a card file. The alphabetical index is still available to patrons in our Reading Room but is no longer maintained.
The recording of such notations and other provenance information are included in the electronic catalog record for the item. Following are some instructions on how to search for names and other such information in our online catalog:
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Start a catalog session by clicking on the following link or typing it into a new browser window: http://catalog.library.nd.edu
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Select the option labeled "Command Search" in the top left menu.
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In the search box, type in the following term: wno=name, replacing "name" in the preceding with a particular name that you wish to search for. For example, to search for the signature of William Tecumseh Sherman, type wno=William Tecumseh Sherman (see Search in the catalog's Help page for explanations of this and other similar codes).
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Limit the search result to Special Collections by selecting "Hesburgh Special Collections" from the All libraries drop-down menu.
Press the search button to execute the search.
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