Monday, October 27, 2008

Harvard Law School Catalogues Digitized

David Warrington, the Librarian for Special Collections at the Harvard Law School Library, announces that the library has digitized its own collection of the School's catalogs and has made them available on the internet. The catalogues date from 1835/1836, when the only two members of the faculty were Joseph Story and Simon Greenleaf. The catalogues document many changes over the next 170 years and provide information on faculty, courses, policies, and student lists, with implications for the general history of legal education in general.

Because the catalog has gone through three name changes since 1835, the catalogs are accessible through three different records in HOLLIS (Harvard's on-line library catalog):

A catalogue of the Law School in Harvard University (1835/36-18
68/69): HOLLIS 11365376

The Law School of Harvard University (1878/89-1970/71): HOLLIS 374288

Harvard Law School Catalog (1970/71-2005/06): HOLLIS 374287

Beginning in the academic year 2006/2007, the course catalog is only available online through the Law School's website.

A complete list of the Library's digital collections is here; these include the Court of Restitution Appeals Reports; "Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides"; the Henry Phillips Papers; "Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the US and UK, 1815-1914"; "Bracton Online"; and the Nuremberg Trials Project (illustrated at left).

Hat tip: H-Law.