Catchall finding aids
- Melanie Wisner
Go to: Catchall list
As of this writing, the lists for catchalls and the Autograph File can also be found on the Groups drive as: HOUGHTON/Technical Services/MS Section/MS documentation/catchalls.xlsx
Background
Catchall finding aids were created over many years to gather together isolated single items (e.g., a letter or a photograph, associated with a creator or not). These items were not substantial enough to receive separate MARC records and so needed a place within an existing collection where they could be described and made accessible. Each catchall contained items sharing a common subject or category but not source. Most catchalls were listed under the name of the subject; subjects could be creators or, in fewer cases, topics. A number of them have titles beginning with "Miscellaneous". Catchalls were created when enough material had accumulated for a subject as to warrant a separate finding aid; there was no practice of adding these items to existing regular collection finding aids (e.g., new letters from someone to Ralph Waldo Emerson would have been added to the catchall MS Am 1189 rather than the main Emerson collection at MS Am 1280).
There exists in parallel the Autograph File (that is the call number), a large catchall that is an alphabetical sequence usually by creator. There is one finding aid per letter of the alphabet (as the whole sequence was too large a file at the time). This sequence acts like a catchall, gathering disparate items of different provenance. At times when enough material accumulated within the Autograph File for a given subject, a separate catchall would be created and the material moved. Items are still added to the Autograph File.
Current practice
We no longer create catchalls but on occasion will add to an existing one; the appropriate creator heading for the catchall would be "Houghton Library, collector". The date range and extent should be updated when the addition changes these values.
An Excel spreadsheet (location noted above) contains lists of both catchalls and the Autograph File with finding aid identifiers and HOLLIS record numbers (most dating from the Aleph era or earlier).