Enfilade

From The Newberry:

Politics, Piety, and Poison: French Pamphlets, 1600–1800
The Newberry Library, Chicago, 28 January — 13 April 2013

This exhibition displays French pamphlets published during the transitional period from the Ancien Régime to the French Revolution. They served as modes of dissemination and diversion, teaching tools and educational models, and the foundation for current and future scholarly projects. The exhibition focuses on the ways in which these pamphlets complement and enhance the Newberry’s other vast collections of primary sources documenting early modern European culture and the history of printing. The Newberry’s outstanding collection of French pamphlets was recently cataloged through a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources.

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About The Newberry’s cataloging project:

Case Wing Z 144.A1, vol.10 No.87, Ordonance (The Newberry Library)

French Pamphlet Collections at the Newberry Library is a three-year project funded by a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant. CLIR administers this national effort with the support of generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. French Pamphlet Collections at the Newberry Library  began in January 2010 and will be completed in January 2013. Through the project, the Newberry is creating full, item-level MARC records for 22,000 French pamphlets that date from the 16th to the 19th century.

The Newberry applied for the CLIR grant to support one of its top cataloging priorities of processing hidden collections. A committee comprised of staff with library service, stacks management, curatorial and collection development responsibilities prioritized these uncataloged and undercataloged materials based on its knowledge of researcher requests, scholarship trends, Newberry collection strengths, subject areas in need of development, and strong complementary collections in other institutions. Pamphlet collections were one of the highest priorities. More specifically, the committee identified the French Pamphlet Collections as being an urgent cataloging need. The material complements strengths of the Newberry’s collection and it is in high-demand by researchers. The bulk of the pamphlets date to the period of the French Revolution and are primary sources for legal, social, and cultural history; literary studies; and the history of publishing. These ephemeral documents have often been overlooked and undervalued by past generations of scholars and undercataloged in research collections. They are of particular value to modern scholarship because they move past official histories and contribute to new interpretations. . .