THE HANCOCK NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTION

A Bibliography of the Books and Serials, primarily from the Boston Society of Natural History Library, formerly in the Hancock Library of Biology & Oceanography at the University of Southern California

by
Melinda K. Hayes

First compiled April 9, 1996

Contents

Books before 1800 Books 1850-1899
Books 1800-1849 Serials Pre-20th Century

Introduction

In 1987 while working as Technical Services Librarian at the Hancock Library of Biology and Oceanography, I began compiling a catalog of the books published before 1800. As work progressed and faculty on campus expressed interest in my project, I created a short-title version of this catalog using Ventura Publisher which I distributed on demand. I began migrating this list to the web in 1996.

After completing the catalog of books, I was encouraged to compile a list of periodicals. A paper version of the Hancock Library's periodicals list was compiled in the 1960s, but cataloging of the serials did not begin until the 1990s and for the older serials in particular, has not been completed. At this writing, this is the only online listing of serials from the Hancock Collection.

In an age of online database, why compile a list of books? My original intent was to provide full bibliographic descriptions of every volume of each title in the collection. Limitations in the national cataloging rules and in character definitions within the local utility made it difficult to provide such descriptions as defined in Fredson Bowers and Gaskill's works within these systems. The development of web resources has allowed new approaches to display and accessibility while retaining the context of a published work. And with the movement of materials out of the Hancock Library and into other locations on campus, this may be the last opportunity to bring together this remarkable collection as it once existed.

 

 

This page is maintained by Melinda K. Hayes, Associate Director in Special Collections at USC. Comments and recommendations regarding this page are welcomed.