The American Antiquarian Society's collection of over 4,000 library catalogs and reports affords access to a rich body of material for literary scholars, historians, librarians, and bibliographers. Library catalogs are a vital resource for the study of reading patterns and the evolution of reading tastes and collecting interests in American intellectual and cultural history. AAS also has two significant family libraries that contain the vast majority (though not all) of the volumes that were owned by two families. The Mather family was a prominent early Puritan family whose library includes books published from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The Brown family was a prominent Black Worcester family whose library dates from the mid- to late-nineteenth century.
Access
Library catalogs published through 1840, and some later ones, can be found in the General Catalog under the genre term "library catalogs."
Library materials & learned societies’ publications issued after 1840 are mostly uncataloged, but can be searched using a variety of finding aids.
- A checklist of the title pages of the U.S. & foreign public library catalogs is available at AAS [catalog record]
- List of U.S. public libraries (Excel)
- List of individuals' private libraries (Excel)
- List of foreign libraries (pdf)
For access to publications from libraries published after 1840 not in the General Catalog, please contact our reference [at] mwa.org (Readers' Services department) or the curator of books.
Resources
AAS Archives
Brown Family Collections (including the family library)
Mather Family Library