Libraries of the great Yorkshire country houses catalogued online
Posted on 12 September 2006
The Yorkshire Country House Partnership (YCHP) Libraries Project has created a unified online catalogue of the book collections at six historic properties across the region.
Staff from the University of York managed the three-year project. The houses involved were Brodsworth Hall, Burton Constable, Castle Howard, Harewood House, Lotherton Hall and Temple Newsam. The catalogue can be viewed at www.york.ac.uk/library/libraries/yorkshirecountryhouselibraries/
Important works in the catalogue range from the oldest, St Augustine’s Augustinus De civitate Dei: cum commento published in 1494 and now in the library at Burton Constable, to the splendidly illustrated History of the coronation of … James II … and of his royal consort Queen Mary by Francis Sandford, published in 1687 and now in Castle Howard Library.
One of the most unusual is in Harewood House library - an inscribed copy from Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, to their daughter, Mary, the Princess Royal, of John Gore's 1941 volume King George V: a personal memoir. It contains the message: "For darling Mary in remembrance of beloved Papa & of many happy days / from your loving Mother / Mary / April 1941".
The project was funded in 2003 by MLA Yorkshire (the regional development agency for museums, libraries and archives), and managed by Elizabeth Harbord, Head of Collection Management, at the University of York Library and Archives. The project officer, Dr David Griffiths, also of the University's Library and Archives, prepared the catalogue in partnership with the curators of the houses.
The objective was to record detail sufficient to widen knowledge of the library collections as research resources
Dr David Griffiths
Dr Griffiths said: "The objective was to record detail sufficient to widen knowledge of the library collections as research resources. We have built up a general overview of the collections during the review process and this, together with the catalogue, is intended to generate, inform, and enable future research."
Each house was catalogued separately, but in the same database, so users can search the collection of one house or those of all six together.
Chief Executive of MLA Yorkshire Annie Mauger said: "We are delighted to have supported this excellent collaborative venture, which has not only made these amazing collections available to the academic community but also to new and larger audiences from much further afield. Congratulations to all the regional partners on successfully achieving the project’s quite ambitious aims!"
Co-chair of the YCHP, Dr Christopher Ridgway, who is also Curator at Castle Howard, added: "We are all familiar with how we go into somebody's house, look at the books on their shelves and make an assessment of who that person is. This project is essentially no different, though the scale of these book collections, and their history make the perspective a richer and more complex one. This is a very exciting and unique project that opens up our understanding of how people read, thought and exchanged ideas in the past."
Notes to editors:
- The stakeholders in the Project were the curators of the houses; the academic staff and research students of the University of York; the University of York Library and Archives; MLA Yorkshire, the regional development agency for museums, libraries and archives.
- The Project included all the YCHP partner houses except National Trust-owned Nostell Priory where a three-year project to catalogue the library began at about the same time. Agreements were drawn up with the curators of each house, detailing all the holdings in the smaller collections, but only parts of the larger ones, given the timescale of the Project.
- Essential support was also provided by Caroline Carr-Whitworth and Crosby Stevens (Brodsworth Hall); Dr David Connell (Burton Constable); Dr Christopher Ridgway, (Castle Howard); Terry Suthers (Harewood House); Dr Adam White (Lotherton Hall); and James Lomax (Temple Newsam). Use of the catalogue of the Lotherton collection in Leeds Central [Public] Library, was facilitated by Pat Egan.
- MLA Yorkshire, the strategic development agency for museums, libraries and archives in the region, is part of the wider MLA Partnership with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and the eight other regional agencies. (Visit: www.mla.gov.uk/)