Using the Folger Library
The Folger staff understands that finding your way around a research library can be confusing, and they expect you to ask questions until you get your bearings. The Head of Readers Services leads a brief walking tour and orientation for seminar participants near the beginning of each semester. Contact the Registrar for more information. If you are unable to attend this orientation, others may be arranged on an individual basis.
Scholars’ Entrance
To enter the Folger Shakespeare Library, please use the entrance nearest the corner of Second and East Capitol Street, SE. If you do not yet have a valid Reader’s card, you will need to tell the guard on duty that you are coming to register as a reader, and he or she will direct you to the Registrar. Once you have a Reader’s card, be prepared to present it to the guard on duty each day before proceeding to the Registrar’s desk at the entrance to the Reading Room to sign in.
The Registrar’s Desk
All Readers must show a valid Reader’s Card and sign in at the Registrar’s desk each day, upon arrival at the library. Upon leaving the Reading Room, you are not required to sign out—but you must secure an exit pass at the circulation desk and present it to the Registrar each time you leave the Reading Room.
Reading Room Guidelines:
- Use pencils only. Ink, ball point pens, markers, colored pencils, correction fluid, scissors, paste, tape, and other items which can damage library materials are not to be brought into the library.
- No food or drink is allowed in the reading room (this includes bottled water, cough drops, and chewing gum).
- When exiting the reading room for any reason, rare materials must be returned to the circulation desk, and readers must obtain an exit pass to present to the Registrar.
- Cell phones must be turned off, or on vibrate.
- Personal cameras, scanners, copy machines, etc. are not permitted.
- All coats, briefcases, bags, newspapers, outerwear, and large purses should be left in the cloakroom. Lockers are available for valuables.
- No material from the collection (including modern books) may be removed from the library. The Folger reserves the right to inspect all bags and packages.
The Reading Rooms
From the Registrar’s desk, you enter what is called the Old Reading Room, the original space designed by Paul Cret under the supervision of Henry Clay Folger, based on the model of an Elizabethan Great Hall.
Immediately adjacent is the New Reading Room, added in the 1980s. Laptops may be used in either room. Instructions for accessing the wireless connection in either Reading Room are available at the circulation desk, accessible from both rooms. There you may also request reference assistance, submit call slips for rare material, and receive an exit pass that clears you to leave the reading room area. Remember that only pencils are permitted in the reading rooms and the seminar rooms.
Professional Staff
Georgianna Zeigler is Louis B. Thalheimer Head of Reference at the Folger. Her office is located at the east end of the Old Reading Room, to the right of the Folgers’ portraits. You are welcome to stop by to discuss your project and what kinds of materials you may find in the collections. Not all parts of the collection have been fully cataloged. If you have searched the online catalog, finding aids, and printed catalogs but still can’t find what you suspect ought to be here, don’t hesitate to contact a curator. If you don’t know which curator to ask, send your inquiry to reference@folger.edu and it will be forwarded to the right person.
The Folger has three curators, each responsible for different types of material:
Erin Blake, Curator of Art & Special Collections - visual materials, objects, scrapbooks, playbills, other ephemera.
Steve Galbraith, Curator of Books - printed books, serials, broadsides.
Heather Wolfe, Curator of Manuscripts - manuscripts, promptbooks, Folger archives.
Curators bear primary responsibility for material in the vault collection. They work closely with staff in acquisitions, conservation, cataloging, photography, exhibitions, and the reading room to ensure that the collection is developed, preserved, and made accessible as best as possible. They set priorities based on the relative importance of different items, scholars’ needs, and available resources (including grant opportunities).
If there’s a particular item you know you need to see during your visit, please contact the relevant curator well in advance to make sure it’s not currently in conservation, on exhibition loan, or otherwise unavailable; they could also suggest a similar item in the collection as a surrogate. If a more intensive physical examination of an item’s make-up (binding structure, collation, watermarks, etc.) is required, it is especially important to inform the curators, who can arrange for you to meet with conservators about how best to pursue your project.
Layout of the Library
Readers have access to three floors of the library proper. The first floor, where both the Old and New Reading Rooms are located, houses the card and online catalogs, reference materials, recent periodicals, and readers’ personal reserve shelves. One flight down, on Deck A, readers can find rest rooms as well as one of the seminar rooms where Institute programs are held. Deck B is located one more flight down. Another seminar room is located on Deck B, as are the Institute’s reserve shelves, the modern book stacks, the periodical stacks, the microfilm and A/V viewing rooms, and additional computer terminals with access to the online catalog.
Requesting Materials from the Collection
The collection is divided into “modern books” (i.e., those published after 1830) and “rare materials” (books published pre-1830, art, and manuscripts). Readers may fetch modern materials (post-1830 imprints) for themselves from the open stacks on Deck B. The slip with which you call for rare books serves as their sign-out slip, but modern books must be signed out electronically at the Deck B or Reading Room circulation desks. Rare items must be requested using white call slips, and can be consulted only in the Old and New Reading Rooms. In some cases, restricted material can be seen only on microfilm or in facsimile.
HAMNET: the Folger’s Online Catalog
We encourage you to browse our online catalog, HAMNET(http://shakespeare.folger.edu) before arriving at the Folger. HAMNET is an evolving resource available at computer terminals throughout the library and via the web. Currently, HAMNET contains mostly records of printed books. Use the “Set Limits” link to limit keyword searches to a specific type of material (e.g., manuscripts, art), date range, language, etc. Use the “Advanced” search tab for searching multiple keyword fields. Please note that the entirety of the Folger’s holdings is not available on HAMNET, so when you arrive at the library, you are encouraged to use our card catalog system to browse our manuscript and rare book collection.
Many of the pre-1800 Continental imprints and almost all of the art and manuscript holdings are not yet in this database. The Folger’s card catalogs remain an important source of information for manuscripts and art. No cards have been added since 1997, when the online catalog debuted. The card catalogs can be consulted in rooms off the passageway between the Old and New Reading Rooms.
G.K. Hall’s printed versions of our card catalogs are available in many libraries—note that these printed catalogs include only material acquired prior to 1980.
Digital Image Collections
Luna Insight Insight contains high resolution images that have been requested for research, publication, and the web. Also included are images created for special projects, e.g., pre-1640 quarto editions of Shakespeare. Some images are accompanied by Hamnet records of the entire item, but in most cases abbreviated data records are provided. Luna is available to readers, either by downloading the software (which allows for more specialized search and usage), or through “Browser Insight.”
Further information on both, as well as user guide links can be found on the Folger website under Use the Collection>Digital Image Collections. Questions can be sent to InsightHelp@folger.edu.
Other Online Resources
Various online resources and catalogs are also available to readers through Hamnet. Through the “Other” tab in Hamnet, it is possible to find online facsimiles, finding aids for the collection, electronic resources such as EEBO, the OED, DNB and the World Shakespeare Bibliography, and off-site links to useful databases and other libraries. Access to some features are through subscription only and may be limited for off-site users.
The Folger Microfilms database is now available offsite (https://bard.folger.edu/microfilms/)
Using the Art and Manuscripts Card Catalogs
N.B. Almost no art has been fully cataloged online, with the exception of the paintings and portrait miniatures.
The art catalog covers independent prints and some drawings (which includes extra-illustrations in books, but not book illustrations, as such). For books consisting of nothing but plates, consult the main card catalog or HAMNET.
Many images from the Folger collection are reproduced in exhibition catalogs, and these can be found in HAMNET by doing an advanced search for keyword “exhibition.”
The manuscript card catalog includes all manuscripts cataloged up to 2000, searchable by main entry/name, added name headings, and subject headings. It also includes non-cataloged accessions up until 1996, which are searchable only by main entry, and which appear on green or pink slips instead of white cards.
Many Folger manuscripts have been microfilmed. Consult the Folger Library Microfilms Database (one of the finding aids in the “Other” tab on HAMNET) to see if a particular Folger manuscript has been microfilmed.
Both the art and the manuscript collections are searchable through chronological card files located in the Art and Manuscript card catalog room.
Please note that the Folger is currently converting the entire manuscript card catalog to HAMNET and is cataloging all accession-level and uncataloged manuscripts in the collection. By fall 2010, all manuscript records will be in HAMNET. In the meantime, using HAMNET in conjunction with the printed catalog will result in comprehensive search. But if you think we might have something and you can’t find it, please ask!
Personal Reserve Shelves and Access to the Collections
Rare materials will be maintained and stored on a personal shelf behind the circulation desk on your behalf. Modern books, personal books, and research materials can be safely stored on a personal shelf assigned to you in the reading room.
Please note, Folger books do not circulate outside the library, but librarians may “borrow” them from one reader’s shelf on behalf of another, with a notation that the book be returned to the first reader’s shelf rather than to the stacks.
Photocopying
Photocopying machines are located on Deck B for copying modern books only.
Lost and Confused: Reader Orientation “Middays”
Near the beginning of each semester, the library offers an informal lunch-time presentation and conversation with the Folger Library’s Head of Reference as well as the Folger’s Curators of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Art and Special Collections. Please ask the Registrar for the date of this program.
Conveniences and Services
See the Registrar's desk for program announcements from many different organizations.
• The Founders Room is located at the end of the first floor hallway and is available to readers for conversation and leisure reading. Coffee and tea are available at the entrance to the room; newspapers are provided.
• Rest rooms are located on the first floor hallway outside the Registrar’s office, and inside the library directly off the stairway on Decks A and B.
• Readers will be called to the telephone only in an emergency. Messages, taken by the Registrar, will be placed next to the sign-in sheet or in the reader’s mailbox. The public telephone in the lobby should be used for outgoing calls.
• The Folger has a thirty-minute period for tea each afternoon (except Saturday) at 3 p.m. in the Tea Room. All readers are cordially invited. This is the only time non-staff members can be in the Tea Room.
