June 5, 2013

Welcome to the Appellate Division Law Library blog!

image of Rochester from September 2010 calendar
September 2010
We’re in possession of calendars so beautiful and informative we wanted everyone to know that we have them. These calendars are produced annually, beginning in 2004, by The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York and are sent to Society members. There are three members on the library staff who have donated their unused calendars to the library. Many thanks to the Assistant Director of the Society for kindly and generously providing pdfs of calendar images for the slide show. He will also send us calendars for 2004-2007, making our holdings complete to date!

Calendars are considered ephemera, which the American Heritage dictionary, Houghton Mifflin (4th ed. 2000) defines as “printed matter of passing interest.” Cataloging ephemera is new and exciting for us. For those unfamiliar, “cataloging is the process of organizing library materials and making them accessible to library users” – Mary Liu Koa, Cataloging and classification for library technicians p. 1 Haworth Press (2nd ed. 2001). Luckily, we are acquainted with a Rare Books & Manuscripts librarian experienced in cataloging all manner of ephemera, including calendars, who graciously shared his expertise and provided us with many examples of his calendar records. Find our original record in the library's online catalog here, scrolling down to view the years in our collection.

Caution: Interest in ephemera could lead to passion and collecting. Find camaraderie in The Ephemera Society of America, an organization of individuals and institutions dedicated to the promotion, preservation, exhibition, and research of ephemeral materials. Attend the annual March conference and Paper Fair in Old Greenwich, CT. The engaging educational sessions and the opportunity to hunt for treasures in the Fair’s ample exhibit space makes the conference a rite of Spring.

A cataloger

1 comment:

  1. Nice work. This will be interesting to follow.

    ReplyDelete