In earlier eras it was both possible and desirable for educated people to know a little about most things. Especially in the 18th century, literate English speakers could read literature written in several western European languages, expected to be conversant in the sciences in a general way, enjoyed reading history and travel accounts about familiar and newly discovered lands, and took an interest in philosophy and religion. By the mid 19th century, when Michigan Agricultural College was founded, the world had become more specialized; it was less possible for educated people to know and keep up with all fields. American land-grant universities built core book collections containing materials read by well-educated people of an earlier time. The more than 3,000 publications in Michigan State University's British 18th-Century Studies Collection is just such a creature. This Collection, located in Special Collections, on microfilm, and in reprints in the circulating stacks has materials on most topics written about in the 18th century, with special strength and depth in English history, English literature, natural history, agriculture, gardening and horticulture, cookery, and veterinary medicine.
A few of M.S.U. Libraries' noted microform sets containing 18th century materials, the Goldsmith-Kress Collection and The Eighteenth Century, for example, have item-level entries in our online catalog, MAGIC. Item-level means that individual works on the film rolls have author/title entries in MAGIC. Many of our many microform collections do not have entries for individual works in MAGIC; there is only an entry at the set level. In these cases, researchers then need to use various printed guides to the different collections to identify works to study and which reels contain them. However, in 1994, Agnes Widder prepared a guide to our microform sets covering the 18th century, including reel guide information. This is a chapter of a longer publication; the microforms chapter is now on the worldwide web at http://www.lib.msu.edu/widder/englishmicro.html. Our purpose with this new web guide is to describe the British 18th-century materials held in book form in Special Collections in more detail than we have had heretofore, referring specifically to Special Collections at times. This guide also covers those microform sets which have item-level records in the online catalog and any reprints in the Main circulating collection.
Under the leadership of the late Henry Koch, Associate Library Director, the British 18th-Century Studies Collection flourished because of his interest in antiquarian collecting, British history, and, indeed, in all things English. We continue to add to the Collection today, thanks to the Library Memorial Endowment established to remember Thomas Bushell, an M.S.U. English history professor, focusing, at present, on conduct literature. To help gain a more complete understanding of these materials we have made a database of the subject headings of the materials in it published from 1660-1815 in the British Isles (in any language) or in English-speaking places in the world, including North America, wherever they occur in our Libraries' collections. We notice that often, but by no means always, the sub-heading "early works to 1800" is employed to describe these works in MAGIC, our online catalog.
Biographical works in the Collection range from Abel (of the Bible) and Peter Abelard to John Wycliffe and Nicolaus Zinzendorf. The greatest number of biographies are of English people, followed by titled English. Other persons well represented are the French, and other royal figures, French and other European titled persons, the ancients, and non-titled Frenchmen. There are works on a smattering of North Americans, religious figures, and others associated with churches or religion. The collection also has biographical material on various groups, such as American Indians, Dissenters, Jesuits, Jews, lawyers, physicians, gypsies, the Society of Friends (Quakers), statesmen, famous European and English families (for example, the Medici, Stuarts, Wesleys), Tories, wives, women, young men, young women, and youth. As the lion's share of the materials were collected prior to 20th-century feminism, most of the biographies are of males, or if about women, of royal figures, for example Queen Anne, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I. Examples of a few persons on whom we have biographical works include the following: Alfred the Great, King of England, John Arbuthnot, Francis Bacon, Elias Ashmole, Samuel Johnson, Joseph Priestley, Sir Walter Raleigh, and William Shenstone.
Books whose titles purport to be "works" or "complete works" of particular authors include the following, among many others: Ann Eliza Bleeckner, Susanna Centlivre, Catherine Yeo Jemmat, Mary Jones, Elizabeth Robinson Montague, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Sappho, Fanny Woodbury, Joseph Addison, Giovanni Boccaccio, Edmund Burke, Robert Burns, George Gordon Byron, the Earl of Chesterfield, Cicero, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Hobbes, Ben Jonson, Samuel Johnson, Niccolo Macchiavelli, Ovid, Alexander Pope, Jean Jacques Rousseau, William Shenstone, William Shakespeare, Virgil, and Jonathan Witherspoon.
The British 18th-Century Studies Collection is rich in books about Great Britain, England, United Kingdom, and the British Isles followed, in descending order, by books on other European countries, cities, and places, especially France, works about the various English provinces, cities, places and sites, and then works on what is today the United States. There is some material on each of the thirteen colonies, save Rhode Island, Delaware, Maine, and North Carolina, as well as on the prominent American cities of the time. The Collection has material on Scotland, Ireland, London, India, Africa, Canada, South America, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Most continental European countries of the 18th century and prior are represented: France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, the low countries, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Germany, Austria, and Poland. Outside of Britain, there is more material on France in the collection than on any other country, owing to the French Monarchy Collection, which is another special collection within Special Collections. There are works on many continental European cities, geographical features, and sites. In researching places, scholars can search Special Collections' holdings in MAGIC, the online catalog, if desired; keep in mind and watch for the various standard sub-headings associated with history and places: "antiquities", "description and travel", "history", "politics and government", "social life and customs", and "economic conditions".
Examples of the works on places in Special Collections include these titles: William Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum, or, an Account of the Antiquities, and Remarkable Curiosities in Nature or Art, Observed in Travels thro' Great Britain, (1724); Josiah Woodward's Account of the Progress of the Reformation of Manners, in England, Scotland, and Ireland and other Parts of Europe and America... , (1706); Thomas Hutchinson's History of the Colony of Massachuset's Bay, from the First Settlement Thereof in 1628, until its Incorporation with the Colony of Plimouth... , [1765]; and John Gifford's Reign of Louis the Sixteenth, and Complete History of the French Revolution... , (1794).
Works in the British 18th-Century Studies Collection make admirable primary sources for research papers, articles, and books. To use the collection to its fullest, one must know the 18th- century meanings of topics, the subject headings used in MAGIC today, and how usage of language may have changed over time. Possible topics for research include, among others, actors and theater, alcohol, apologetics, architecture, Christianity, church and state relations, the Church of England, conduct of life, congregational churches, cookery, education, election sermons, public finance, geography, British land tenure, British law, marriage, music, natural theology, nobility, philosophy, sermons, British taxation, British trials, British women, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Try searching these topics in MAGIC scoping the search to include only Special Collections' materials to take advantage of whatever actual 18th-century imprints M.S.U. Libraries has. Then find more primary material, if you need it, by using materials on microform or online.
Just a few examples of topical history in our Special Collections include these titles: John Hill's Conduct of a Married Life, Laid Down in a Series of Letters... , (1753); Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful , (1757); Henry Fielding's Proposal for Making an Effectual Provision for the Poor, for Amending Their Morals, and for Rendering them Useful Members of the Society... , (1753); and James Ferguson's Astronomy Explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles and Made Easy to Those Who Have Not Studied Mathematics , (1757).
Sometimes research on 18th century, and earlier, topics necessitates the use of reference works, in order to clarify word meanings, to learn about a particular individual, to read just a bit about an ancillary concept, to gain a more complete understanding of a topic, to see one's project more clearly through the eyes of people at the time, or to find more sources. The British 18th-Century Studies Collection contains some general encyclopedias and dictionaries, bibliographies, subject dictionaries, handbooks, gazetteers, bio and bio-bibliographical dictionaries and registers, and bibliographies and catalogs. For example, there are subject dictionaries or handbooks in the collection on actors, agriculture, architecture, art, the Bible, botany, cattle, chemistry, church history, commerce, commercial law, engravers, gardening, geography, history, horse diseases, horsemanship, horses, hunting, naval art and science, painters, religions, sports, veterinary medicine, and zoology. The Collection has gazetteers (geographical dictionaries) and dictionaries of the United States, America, Great Britain, England, France, Latin America, and London. There are language dictionaries, for English, French, Gaelic, Algonquian, Italian, and Latin. For the English language there are also etymology, slang, and pronunciation dictionaries. The Collection has works leading to information about people-bio-bibliographies, biographical dictionaries, directories, and registers- for English poets, English literary authors, 17th-century French literary authors, Great Britain as a whole, Harvard University, London merchants, New England, and University of Oxford. Bibliographies and catalogs also existed in the 18th century, which lead the researcher on to other sources. There are bibliographies on, or catalogs of, agriculture, English literature, English poetry, British history, British local history, incunabula, Irish literature, Italian literature, Latin America, British manuscripts, New York State history, pamphlets, printing history, rare books, the Society of Friends, British and English theater, and travel.
Examples of some of the reference works in Special Collections itself are Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language... , (1755); Matthew Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, from the Revival of the Art to the Present Period , (1805); Philip Miller's Gardeners and Florists Dictionary , (1724); and List of Members of the Society of Antiquaries of London, from Their Revival in 1717 to June 19, 1796, Arranged in Chronological and Alphabetical Order , (1798).
Periodical publications first appeared in England in the 17th century, along with political parties and postal service. There are 44 periodical titles in Special Collections, published from 1660-1815 in the British Isles in any language, or in another English-speaking place. There are many more periodicals in the microform collection. Issues of commonly known periodicals to be found in Special Collections are Gentleman's Magazine, Rambler, Spectator, Tatler, Edinburgh Review, Female Spectator, Monitor, or the British Freeholder, North Briton, and Examiner. There are also other political, literary, women's interest, and scientific ones, as well as society publications there.
Works of literature in the British 18th-Century Studies Collection are rich and deep, especially English literature. Literary works are not described in MAGIC, our online catalog, using Library of Congress subject headings, so it was not possible to study these headings to help describe this part of the collection. To make up for this, in making the database of the British 18th-Century Studies Collection, literary authors' names were listed under the genres they wrote in using the general headings drama/plays, fiction, poetry, and non-fiction prose, making separate sections for authors of the different nationalities: English/American, French, Italian, and so forth. By this means, works by the ancient dramatists Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, and Terence were identified to be in the Collection. There are plays by 65 English and American authors, six French authors, two German authors, and one Italian author. The Shakespeare collection is notable. Most of the drama is by men, but plays by Joanna Baillie, Susanna Centlivre, Sarah Fielding, Elizabeth Griffith, Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald, Harriet Lee, Hannah More, and Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan are in the Collection, too.
There is fiction by English, French, German, ancient Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Swiss-French authors. Of the 52 English and American authors , 24 are women, nearly half! Among them are Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Sarah Fielding, Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Lennox, Mrs. Mary de la Riviere Manley, Hannah More, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Charlotte Turner Smith, and Mrs. Sarah Trimmer. Fiction by prominent and long studied authors William Godwin, Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Richardson, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne, Horace Walpole, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Southey are also available. There are ten French writers of fiction, three German, two Spanish, and one each of other nationalities.
The poetry in the Collection is also voluminous. Many people wrote poetry then, as now. Moreover, in the 18th- century, writers more often used verse form to convey their thoughts than we may do today. There is poetry by 155 English and American poets, three French poets, six ancient Greek and Latin writers, and four Italian poets. Of the English and American poets represented, twenty-six are women, including Phillis Wheatley, Mercy Otis Warren, Anna Seward, Katharine Philips, Hannah More, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Aphra Behn, and Anna Letitia Barbauld. As with the fiction, there are plentiful holdings by prominent male poets, such as Joseph Addison, Robert Burns, William Cowper, John Dryden, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Steele, Christopher Smart, and Jonathan Swift, as well as a host of never-heard-of-poets, both male and female.
Efforts to capture non-fiction prose by literary authors in the database of subject headings was very incomplete. Some of these works have L.C. Subject headings in MAGIC, the online catalog, and some do not. Catalogers have kindly worked to improve the subject headings of some of these works as the project went along. Suffice it to say that the Collection contains many works by authors such as Robert Dodsley, Henry Fielding, Thomas Paine, Alexander Pope, Adam Smith, Oliver Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson.
The Collection is rich also in works about English literature and language. The works on language are about dialects, grammar, etymology, lexicography, obsolete words, Old English, orthography and spelling, pronunciation, slang, style, and synonyms and antonyms. There are translations into English from French works about English literature. There are also works of history and criticism, bio-bibliography, bibliography, and wit and humor. In English poetry there are similar kinds of books, with a greater abundance of translations, a periodical or two, some Quaker authors, and some Middle English poetry published from 1660-1815.
In literature here are some of the significant works found in Special Collections: Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749); and Amelia (1752); Laurence Sterne's Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1760-67); Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766); Daniel DeFoe's Journal of the Plague Year (1722); Frances Burney's Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1801); Mary De la Riviere Manley's Power of Love (1720); Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella (1752); and Eliza Haywood's Female Spectator (1755).
The Library has worked assiduously in the 20th century building up the 18th-century English literature and history collections. The materials published 1660-1815 in the British Isles or other English-speaking places, located in Special Collections, about various practical arts and the sciences began to be collected much earlier because of Michigan Agricultural College's land- grant roots and mission. Special Collections continues to add veterinary medicine, cookery, home economics, agriculture, apiculture, landscape design, botany, horticulture and gardening, and natural history titles published in the 18th century. One might wonder why an American land-grant college has so many books on these various sciences which are about the British Isles. How would they be useful in American farming, for example? In the 18th -century publishing in America was very limited; works printed in England were reprinted in America. Many English-speaking people brought with them or imported British works because this is where the definitive works of the time, in English, on a great many topics were first published. Some did, and some did not, relate to American farming or gardening conditions and situations. These works formed the basis upon which American natural and agricultural knowledge was built. People living in North America had to discover the extent to which English farming methods and techniques applied, or didn't apply to American soil, climate, and seasons. Ditto for books on plants and, indeed, on all aspects of the natural world.
The British 18th-Century Studies Collection has many works on veterinary medicine. An online catalog of the Veterinary Medicine Collection exists and is the process of being digitized. Topics in the 18th -century English holdings include many works on the diseases of horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep, distemper, rabies, and books on veterinary drugs, hygiene, obstetrics, and pharmacology. There are general works and dictionaries of veterinary medicine. There are also books on animal behavior, animal heat, anatomy, and animal mechanics.
Notable works in the Veterinary Medicine Collection in Special Collections include the following: Robert James' Treatise on Canine Madness (1760); William Burdon's Gentleman's Pocket-Farrier (1730); Andrew Snape's Anatomy of a Horse (1683); and Markham and Jeffries' Citizen and Countryman's Experienced Farrier (1764).
The British 18th-Century Studies Collection has general works on agriculture and farming in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, the United States, and 12 English counties. There are also a bibliography, dictionaries, manuals, a society publication, and several periodicals. There are books on many agriculture, farming and related topics: alfalfa, cattle, cattle breeds, cattle breeding, feeds and feeding, trade, agriculture chemistry, corn, (meaning wheat), corn laws, farm management, forage plants, grain, grain trade, incubators, inoculation, irrigation, land tenure, land titles, land value, landlord and tenant, livestock, meat industry and trades, sheep, sheep breeding, parturition, plows, plowing, poultry, control of rats, soils, soil fertility, swine, tillage, tobacco, wheat and its diseases, wool, and wool industry. There are a great number of books about horses--on hooves, horsemanship, horseshoeing, and draft horses.
Notable works in Special Collections include the following: Richard Bradley's Farmers Letters to the People of England (1767); Arthur Young's Six Month Tour Through the North of England (1771); Jethro Tull's Horseshoeing Husbandry, or an Essay on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation (1733); Henry Kame's Gentleman Farmer (1776); and John Worlidge's Systema Agriculturae (1669).
Ray Stannard Baker, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Woodrow Wilson, editor of Wilson's papers, and author of many other works, donated a collection of books on apiculture, or beekeeping, in 1946. A number of these works were published in the 18th century. There is a guide to this collection on the web at http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col/apic.htm.
The English are a nation of gardeners. Botany, gardening, horticulture, and landscape design are subjects long taught at Michigan State University. In the long 18th century many discoveries were made in botany and its practical applications; plus, plants unfamiliar to Europeans were discovered in North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The British 18th-Century Collection has many books on the following topics: apples, cucumbers, florin grass, floriculture, flower gardening, flowers, forcing (plants), fruit, fruit culture, fruit trees, fungi, gooseberries, grasses, greenhouses, greenhouse plants, greenhouse gardening, hedges, herbs, horticulture, house plants and their pests, insects, Carl von Linne, mosses, moths, mushrooms, pear, pest control, pineapples and their diseases, plant breeding, plant physiology, plant propagation, ornamental plants, medicinal plants, edible plants, cultivated plants, pruning, raspberries, anatomy of roots, sericulture (raising silkworms and mulberry trees), shrubs, strawberries, vegetables, vegetable gardening, and viticulture. There are also works on landscape, landscape architecture, and landscape drawing, plus books on Blenheim Palace and Park, and the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. The books on botany and gardening in general cover these subjects in a wide variety of geographic areas--the British Isles, China, the United States, India, Massachusetts, New York State, the Philippines, South Carolina, France, Turkey, and Oceania. There are pre-Linnean works, poetry, pictorial works, history, anatomy, juvenile literature, physiology, periodicals, and dictionaries on botany and gardening.
Notable books on gardening and horticulture in Special Collections include the following: William Lawson's New Orchard and Garden (1683); John Evelyn's Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees, and the Propagation of Timber (1679); Leonard Meager's English Gardener (1670); and Humphrey Repton's Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening (1794).
The books on natural history address Asia, the Atlantic states, Australia, Canada, the Canadian Northwest, China, Egypt, England, Indonesia, Lapland, Louisiana, New South Wales, North Carolina, South Africa, and the United States. Englishmen and other Europeans made discoveries about natural history all over the globe, in conjunction with exploration and discovery of unknown lands. There are also general and pre-Linnean natural history works. There are many works on forests and forestry, forestry law, forest management, trees, tree planting, tree diseases and pests, wounds and injuries to trees, oak, willows, wood, and timber. Also present books are on hunting, rifles, pigeons, fox hunting, game and game-birds, and game laws. Represented, too, are works on poisons, toxicology, venom, venoms, and the psychological effect of venom. There are works on the seasons, including poetry, and books on the folklore of weather and weather forecasting. Works on invertebrates, llamas, marine animals in Britain, Lepidoptera or butterflies, cage birds, canaries, caterpillars, bird pests, birds' eggs and nests, birds in the British Isles and in the United States, and pictorial works on birds. Completing this part of the Collection are works on anatomy, biology, zoology, technology, scientific recreations, scientific expeditions, a catalog of scientific apparatus and instruments, science periodical and society works, and biographies of scientists.
Interesting titles in this portion of Special Collections include the following: William Forsyth's Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries in All Kinds of Fruit and Forest Trees (1791); Peter Beckford's Thoughts on Hunting, in a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend (1781); Richard Mead's Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays (1702); and James Edward Smith's Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia... (1797).
Unlike today, in the 18th-century English-speaking world, matters related to cookery, home management, and human health were the exclusive purview of women, housewives, and female household managers. Today's so called alternative medicine was mainstream treatment, often using preparations made by women at home in the kitchen. People called in male physicians only when women's remedies appeared to be ineffective or unsuccessful, or when the case was clearly severe, beyond what home doctoring was expected to treat. As a result, many cookbooks from this period and on into the 19th century contained a mixture of food recipes; concoctions for healing and beautification; hints and recipes for cleaning and household management; and information on proper management of human relations in the home and instructions on child rearing. These are the works that would have been considered valuable for the Michigan Agricultural College's Library when the "women's program" was founded in 1896. Special Collections has been fortunate to have two benefactresses of the cookery collection. Mary Ross Reynolds and Beatrice V. Grant, both home economics professors at M.S.U., donated their collections. Beatrice V. Grant also provided an endowment to help the cookery collection grow. While our collecting efforts are intensively directed at a variety of other cookery topics at this time, there are numerous cookery books in the British 18th-Century Studies Collection as well as a few 18th -century manuscript works. Besides the obvious subjects of cookery, and recipes, researchers will find material under these topics: bread, brewers, brewing, canning and preserving, carving (meat, etc.), cookbooks, diet, food, gastronomy-poetry, menus, salad greens, salads, table etiquette, tea, vegetarianism, and wine and wine making. Notable 18th-century cookery works in Special Collections include Hannah Glasse's Art of Cooking (1747); and her Compleat Confectioner (c. 1770), Elizabeth Raffald's Experienced English Housekeeper (1769); Eliza Smith's Compleat Housewife (1727); William King's Art of Cookery (1712); Penelope Bradshaw's Family Jewel and Compleat Housewife's Companion (1751); Ann Cook's Professed Cookery (1755); William Henderson's Housekeeper's Instructor; or, Universal Family Cook (c. 1790); and Mrs. Frazier's Practice of Cookery, Pastry, Confectionary... (1791).
Examining some cookery titles shows how frequently the cook was more than a cook; she was also in charge of human development and personal relations! Topics in this area that may be studied in the British 18th-Century Studies Collection are child rearing; conduct of life of children, women, young women, young men, and boys; duty; husband and wife; marriage; married life; master and servant; moral education; temperance; temptation; life skills guides for women; and education of women and of young women. Some cookery works have information about practical how-to-do-it household matters: dyes and dyeing, hygiene, health, control of mice, nutrition and the poor, and children's and women's health and hygiene. Examples of these two kinds of works in Special Collections are Mrs. (Elizabeth) Griffith's Essays Addressed to Young Married Women (1782); Thomas Gillespie's Treatise on Temptation, being an Inquiry Why Folly, Wickedness and Misery Appear and Prevail, in Different Forms, Among Various Classes of Men (1774); James Haigh's Hint to Dyers and Cloth-Makers, and Well Worth the Notice of the Merchant, [1779]; and Robert Smith's Universal Directory for Taking Alive and Destroying Rats, and All Other Kinds of Four-Footed and Winged Vermin... (1786).
Although M.S.U. today has colleges of both human medicine and osteopathic medicine our British 18th-century studies collection does not have nearly as many works on human medicine as on veterinary medicine, described earlier. There are books on these medical topics, however: castor oil, hot springs, hydrotherapy, materia medica, mineral waters, obstetrics, physicians, physiology, medicine, and microscopes and microscopy. Sub-headings on the books on medicine include history, humor, practice, popular works and formulae, receipts, and prescriptions. Examples of works on human medicine and health remedies in Special Collections are Peter Cavane's Dissertation on the Oleum Palmae Christi, Sive Oleum Ricini; or ...Castor Oil, in Which its History is Illustrated.... [1766]; Nicholas Culpeper's English Physitian Enlarged, with Three Hundred, Sixty and Nine Medicines, Made of English Herbs... (1684); , and William Buchan's Domestic Medicine, or, a Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines (1793).
In summary, the British 18th-Century Studies Collection is a useful one, especially for a land-grant university. It contains works reflecting both the land-grant tradition and those of the well-educated gentle person of the 18th century. To make identification of materials for study easier for researchers, here are a few tips, in closing. First, in using MAGIC, the online catalog, scope the search at the outset to search only Special Collections' holdings, if you know you want to use "old books." Second, within the Special Collections' scope, searches may limited be to publications whose imprint dates are in within a particular range of years. To search the long 18th century enter 1660-1815. Third, remember that M.S.U. Libraries has a great many microform works which will not show up in a MAGIC search of Special Collections' holdings alone. The microforms with item-level entries in the online catalog are reflected in the foregoing discussion. Fourth, some of the microform sets do not have item-level entries in the online catalog at all. Read http://www.lib.msu.edu/widder/englishmicro.html to learn about the microform sets without item-level access and how to use them productively. Fifth, remember the standard sub-heading "early works to 1800." Look for this when searching topics in MAGIC. Sixth, this standard sub-heading is by no means applied comprehensively. Seventh, primary sources may also be found amid the M.S.U. Libraries' electronic resources. Eighth, consider seeking out and speaking with Peter Berg, Head of Special Collections, or Agnes Haigh Widder, Humanities Bibliographer if you would like assistance with the materials described in this guide.
This guide has been prepared by Agnes Haigh Widder, Humanities Bibliographer, 2003.
The Special Collections' stacks are closed to the public. A request form should be presented to the staff person at the Special Collections reading room desk who will retrieve the material for use.
Identification must be presented when material is requested.
Material may be used only in the Special Collections reading room and should be returned to the reading room desk when finished.
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The Special Collections Division exists to preserve the heritage of the past and to collect important records of contemporary culture, making these materials available for scholarly use. These rules are not devised to impede the use of the materials, but rather to guarantee their preservation and orderly administration. We ask readers to share our concern to conserve these resources by observing our regulations governing their use.
Inquiries may be addressed to the Head of Special Collections, Michigan State University, 100 Library, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1048. Telephone: 517-355-3770. FAX: 517-353-5069. URL: http://www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/spec_col
Special Collections is located in the lower level of the East Wing of the Main Library.
Normal Special Collections hours are: 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays; 9:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m. on Wednesdays; 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and 1:00 p.m.- 5:00 p.m. on Sundays.
Agnes Haigh Widder, Humanities Bibliographer, Michigan State University