pastispresent.org
A blog from the American Antiquarian Society

Call for Co-editors for an AAS Glossary

February 1st, 2010, by Elizabeth Watts Pope

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booksnake

The American Antiquarian Society is almost 200 years old. I guess that’s not entirely shocking, given that “Antiquarian” is in our name, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that when we were founded there were no functional steam-locomotives, no sewing machines, no modern matches.  Napoleon was still fighting his way across Europe.  Even “The Star-Spangled [...]


Anatomy of a Catalog Record

November 10th, 2009, by Diann Benti

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catalog_record

People tend to treat catalog records a lot like refrigerators: open it, grab what you need, and close it up again. At AAS, the milk, eggs, and butter of the record are the author, title, and call number. Locate those three and the rest can stay a black and white blur. But know that somewhere [...]