Guide to the Lenore Coral 19^th Century British Book Auction Catalog Papers

Title:
Lenore Coral 19^th Century British Book Auction Catalog Papers

OCLC/RLIN No. (Unique ID):
954045771

Dates: 
1979-2016

Bulk Dates:
1979-2005

Extent:
8 boxes; 11 linear feet

Abstract:
Index cards, research materials and database relating to the compilation of Bibliography of British Book Auction Catalogues, 1801-1900 by Lenore Coral.

Access Restrictions:
Collection is open for research use. Copyright restrictions may apply; please contact repository for requests for copying and for authorization to publish, quote, or reproduce the materials.

Preferred Citation:
[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Lenore Coral 19^th Century British Book Auction Catalog Papers, 1979-2016, The Grolier Club of New York.

About the Finding Aid:
This finding aid was prepared by Sophia Dahab in Microsoft Word at the Grolier Club, July 2016.

Provenance:
Gift of Annette Fern, June 2016                                  

Access Points:

Coral, Lenore
Munby, A.N.L.
Fern, Annette
Auction catalogues

Biographical/Historical Note:

Lenore Frances Coral (1939–2005) began her career as the Fine Arts Librarian at the University of California, Irvine in 1967.  She later served as Music Librarian at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and, from 1982, as Music Librarian and Adjunct Professor of Music at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.[1] 

Coral’s research interest in 18^th century British auction and sale catalogues, and specifically those containing musical material, began in 1965 while she was completing her library degree at the University of Chicago when a professor challenged her to index music sold in English catalogues in search of a specific set of partbooks. Her research took her to London with a Fulbright fellowship, and later, in 1974, to a PhD in Musicology.

While in London she met and began collaborating with A.N.L. Munby on what would become British Book Sale Catalogues, 1676-1800: A Union List, published in 1977, a few years after Munby’s death in 1974. In 1979 Coral was awarded a research grant through the National Endowment for the Humanities, and she began work on indexing 19th century catalogues. By 1995, Coral had finished gathering most of her data – all of which was typed on index cards with a typewriter – and began the long process of entering all of her data into a computer, with the help of her students.[2]

Upon her death in 2005, the project remained unfinished, though nearly complete.  Work on the database was carried on by her student workers, and then by Annette Fern. According to Fern, approximately 1500 entries were created directly from the field notebooks without making a paper record in the index files. As a consequence, the database contains more entries than are represented in the card index.  In preparing the database for publication on BibSite (see below), Fern created a new, edited version, which included corrections to typographical errors; filled-in information that was previously missing; and the addition of the name of the city to the record of every sale taking place outside of London. A preliminary version of the publication, updated in 2016 and including Fern’s edits, is available through the Bibliographical Society of America’s BibSite.[3]

Scope and Content Note: 23 boxes of typewritten and annotated file cards (date and consignor indexes); 26 notebooks containing field notes from Coral’s visits to libraries primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States; a photocopy of A.N.L. Munby's extensively annotated copy of List of Catalogues of English Book Sales 1676-1900 Now in the British Museum (London, 1915) with Coral’s additional ms. annotations; two computer discs with original and copy-edited (by Annette Fern) versions of the FileMaker Pro 7 database; and two folders of correspondence, contracts, and information regarding the history and evolution of the project. 

Note: The record number in the database represents the order in which the records were input and is not otherwise meaningful. Additional information about the database and the editorial intervention by Annette Fern can be found in Box 8, Folder 2.

Note: Upon receipt of this collection at the Grolier Club, copies of both databases were opened with FileMaker Pro 15 and migrated from their original .fmp7 formats to the most recent FileMaker Pro format, .fmp12.  The records were then exported and converted to .csv and .xlsx files.  Electronic versions of the .fmp12, .csv, and .xlsx files for both databases are available in the repository.

Arrangement Note: This collection is in its original order.  Date and consigner index cards were left in their original stationary boxes.  The archivist arranged the collection into 5 series based on the type of material:

Series I: Date Index
Series II: Consigner Index
Series III: Notebooks
Series IV: Database
Series V: Correspondence and Contracts        

Container List:

Series I: Date Index (chronological)

Box	Item	Contents	Date
1	1	Date Cards 1801-1815	1980s-1990s
1	2	Date Cards 1816-1823	1980s-1990s
1	3	Date Cards 1824-1829	1980s-1990s
1	4	Date Cards 1830-1835	1980s-1990s
2	1	Date Cards 1836-1841	1980s-1990s
2	2	Date Cards 1842-1848	1980s-1990s
2	3	Date Cards 1849-1854	1980s-1990s
2	4	Date Cards 1855-1861	1980s-1990s
3	1	Date Cards 1862-1867	1980s-1990s
3	2	Date Cards 1868-1876	1980s-1990s
3	3	Date Cards 1877-1884	1980s-1990s
3	4	Date Cards 1885-1890	1980s-1990s
4	1	Date Cards 1891-1897	1980s-1990s
4	2	Date Cards 1898-1900	1980s-1990s

 

Series II: Consigner Index (alphabetical)

Note: This index was described by Annette Fern as probably incomplete.

Box	Item	Contents	Date
5	1	Consignor Cards A-B	1980s-1990s
5	2	Consignor Cards C-D	1980s-1990s
5	3	Consignor Cards E-G	1980s-1990s
5	4	Consignor Cards H-K	1980s-1990s
6	1	Consignor Cards L-N	1980s-1990s
6	2	Consignor Cards O-R	1980s-1990s
6	3	Consignor Cards S	1980s-1990s
6	4	Consignor Cards T-V	1980s-1990s
6	5	Consignor Cards W-Z	1980s-1990s

 

Series III: Notebooks

            Note:  Notebooks in this series are arranged numerically by a number assigned to them by an unknown party sometime prior to 2008.  The numbers assigned to the notebooks do not correspond to the chronological creation of these notebooks but were also used by Annette Fern in her research.  A document outlining the contents of each notebook can be found in Box 8 Folder 2.

Box	Folder	Contents	Date
7	1	Notebook 1: Cambridge: I	Undated
7	2	Notebook 2: Cambridge, Birmingham: Barber Institute	Undated
7	3	Notebook 3: [No label on cover]	Undated
7	4	Notebook 4: [No label on cover]	Undated
7	5	Notebook 5: Last Notebook!	July 1980
7	6	Notebook 6: Christies I	Undated
7	7	[Loose items removed from Notebook 6]	1982
7	8	Notebook 7: Provincial Libraries II, Manchester	May/June 1980
7	9	Notebook 8: Dublin	June 1980
7	10	Notebook 9: [No label on cover]	Undated
7	11	Notebook 10: Miscellaneous Additions: 2	September 1979
7	12	Notebook 11: Miscellaneous Additions 4, BLMSS	December 1979
7	13	Notebook 12: Miscellaneous Additions: 3	25 September 1979
7	14	Notebook 13: [No label on cover]	1979
7	15	Notebook 14: [No label on cover]	Undated
7	16	[Loose items removed from Notebook 14]	2003
7	17	Notebook 15: Oxford	January 1980
7	18	Notebook 16: Provincial Collections I: Durham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow	April 1980
7	19	Notebook 17: Hodgson Catalogues: 3	22 October 1979
7	20	Notebook 18: BLMSS, BL: Phillips	Undated
7	21	Notebook 19: Miscellaneous Additions I	July 1979
7	22	Notebook 20: Hodgson Catalogues: 2	Undated
7	23	Notebook 21: V & A, BMP, BMCM	April 1980
7	24	[Loose items removed from Notebook 21]	Undated
7	25	Notebook 22: [No label on cover]	Undated
7	26	Notebook 23: SUNYB	18 August 2004
7	27	Notebook 24: Phillips at Wallace, Christies	Undated
7	28	Notebook 25: Norwich	Undated
7	29	[Loose items removed from Notebook 25]	1973-1980
7	30	Notebook 26: [No label on cover]	Undated
7	31	[Loose items removed from Notebook 26]	1981

 

Series IV: Database

            Note: Electronic files available in repository.

Box	Folder	Contents	Date
7	32	Bibliography of British Book Auction Catalogues: 1801-1900, Database and Sigla Index [CD-RW, .fmp7 and .doc]	1982-2002
7	33	FileMaker Pro Database, copy-edited by Annette Fern [CD-R80, .fmp7]	2005-2016
n/a	n/a	Coral_Lenore_Auction Cats Copy.fmp12	2016
n/a	n/a	Coral_Lenore_Auction Cats Copy_Converted.xlsx	2016
n/a	n/a	Coral_Lenore_Auction Cats Copy_Export.csv	2016
n/a	n/a	Coral19CRev.fmp12	2016
n/a	n/a	Coral19CRev_Converted.xlsx	2016
n/a	n/a	Coral19CRev_Export.csv	2016

 

Series V: Correspondence, Contracts and Collection Information

            Note:  Box 8 kept onsite

Box	Folder	Contents	Date
8	1	Lenore Coral [Correspondence and Contracts]	1982-2002
8	2	Annette Fern [Correspondence and Collection Information]	2005-2016
8	3	Photocopy of A.N.L. Munby’s annotated copy of the List of Catalogues of English Book Sales 1676-1900 Now in the British Museum (London, 1915) with additional ms. annotations by Lenore Coral	1970s