Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Local Subject Tracings

In addition to searching the standard subject headings listed in the Library of Congress Guide to Subject Headings, there is provision in the Advanced Search screen in Orbis for searching locally defined subjects. Select Local Subjects from the drop down list following Search in: This Keyword search looks only at the locally defined headings and therefore is a more focused search than a Keyword Search or Ranked Keyword Search on the Simple Search screen. Local subjects include special tracings for provenance, imprint, chronology, as well as binding information. The following description of special tracings which have been made for some Beinecke materials fall into four categories:

Provenance
Bibliographical Files
Binding
Incunabula


Provenance
Special tracings are made for autographs, bookplates and other indications of previous ownership in books in the Beinecke Library and other special collections. Orbis's Advanced Search allows you to search as a phrase in the Local Subjects keyword index the name of person or corporate body to retrieve provenance information about that individual or corporate body.

Example: In the Advanced Search screen, search as a phrase stein gertrude to retrieve materials that were inscribed by Stein, owned by her, presented to her and autographed by another, books with manuscript notes in her hand, books with her bookplate, etc.

When searching for provenance information, invert personal names but enter corporarte enties in direct word order -- e.g. Pope Alexander but G. & C. Merriam Company. To narrow the search to any of the specific subheadings -- autograph, bookplate, ms. notes, etc. -- enter the phrase in the second Search for: box and select as a phrase from the drop down menu.



Terms for Provenance Tracings

Autograph
Binding
Bookplate
Inscription [used for institutions]
Ms notes
Original art
Ownership[used when there is no provenance evidence in the item]
Presentation inscription
Presentation inscription to [forename initials] [surname]
Presentation inscription from [forename initials] [surname]
Stamp

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Bibliographical File

Special subject tracings for bibliographical features have been made for some materials in the Yale Libraries. Search Orbis using the Genre/Form option in the Search in: drop down list. You may also broaden the search by using the symbol ? at the end of a word or date.

Example:



 

The following is a list of terms that are in use Orbis.

*Note: The place and date of the delivery of Sermons and Addresses are only traced here as Local Subjects when they are different from the place and date of publication.

Terms for Special Local Bibliographical Tracings

Acrostics
Advertisements
Almanacs
Alphabet books
Anti-Catholic literature
Artists' books
Auction catalogs (search as separate phrases the place and/or date of auction)
Ballads (Used in preference to Broadside poems when intended to be sung.)
Banned works
Blank forms
Booksellers' advertisements
Booksellers' catalogs
Broadside poems
Calaveras
Campaign biographies (search as separate phrases the country and/or date of election)
Captivity narratives
Carriers' addresses
Chapbooks
Ciphers
College addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
College addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication) Use for addresses other than Baccalaureate addresses given at colleges and universities.
College catalogs
Comedies
Comic books
Concrete poems
Congressional addresses (search as a separate phrase the date of delivery)
Cookbooks
Cries
Dictionaries
Dime novels
Directories
Emblem books
Erotica
Expurgated editions
Fables
Fairy tales
Festival books
Fourth of July addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Fourth of July addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Funeral addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Funeral addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Funeral sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Funeral sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Gallows speeches
Gift books
Guidebooks (search as separate phrases the place of description and date of publication)
Hand-colored illustrations
Herbals
Hornbooks
Hymnals
Installation sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Installation sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Interlinearies
Jesuit relations (search as separate phrases the place and date of relation)
Juvenile literature
Juvenilia
Laws (search as separate phrases the jurisdiction and date of enactment)
Not used for French or Mexican government documents.
Legislative addresses (search as separate phrases the jurisdiction and date of delivery)
Literary hoaxes
Little magazines (search a separate phrase the country of publication only)
Use for advance-guard journals, primarily literary, but sometimes including articles on art and politics, concerned with the publication of writers or writing not likely to be accepted by established journals of larger circulation, i.e. magazines "designed to print artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money minded periodicals or presses." Most of these magazines have short lives (less than 10 years), limited circulation and few critical essays. Most academic "reviews" such as the Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly or Southern Review are not little magazines. For more information see Hoffman, Frederick J. The Little magazine : a history and a bibliography. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1946.
Livres d'artistes
Local histories (search as separate phrases the geographic area and date of publication)
Mazarinades
Menus
Military orders
Morality plays
Nursery rhymes
Official gazettes (search as separate phrase the jurisdiction)
Ordination sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Ordination sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Original art
Overland journals (search as separate phrase the date of journey)
Pastoral poems
Penmanship specimen books
Photographs (search 19th century as a separate phrase)
Playbills
Pochoir
Poetical miscellanies
Primers (Instructional books)
Programs
Promotional literature (search as separate phrases the place of promotion and date of publication)
Promptbooks
Prospectuses
Publishers' advertisements
Publishers' catalogs
Regimental histories
Roadbooks
Romans á clef
Satires
Scrolls (search as separate phrase the language)
Sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Slave narratives
Spellers
Textbooks
Thanksgiving day addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Thanksgiving day addresses (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Thanksgiving sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of delivery)
Thanksgiving sermons (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Theater programs
Trade catalogs
Tragedies
Tragicomedies
Travel literature (search as separate phrases the area of journey and date of travel)
Typography, Dadaist.
Typography, Futurist.
Typography, Surrealist.
Typography, Vorticist.
Underground publications
Utopian literature
Viewbooks (search as separate phrases the place and date of publication)
Volvelles.



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Binding

Orbis contains special tracings and notes for armorial bindings, "signed" bindings, binding designers, binding styles, and other binding characteristics such as printed or manuscript waste. Specific terms are listed below. In general only significant examples of binding styles are traced, but certain types such as blind-tooled pigskin bindings are always recorded.

Use the Genre/Form index in the Advanced Search screen to search for specific types of bindings or binding terms, but to locate examples of bindings of a particular person, search the Local Subjects index on the Advanced Search Screen: as a phrase [name of person: e.g. Newcastle, Henry Pelham] and a second as a phrase [Binding].

 

Example:



 
 

Terms for Special Local Binding Tracings

Accordion fold format (Binding)
Apollo and Pegasus bindings (Binding)
Architectural bindings (Binding)
Armorial bindings (Binding)
Binders (Binding) (Search for the name of binder as a second phrase)
Binders' instructions (Binding)
Binders' stamps (Binding) (Search for the name of binder as a second phrase)
Binders' tickets (Binding) (Search for the name of binder as a second phrase)
Blind tooled bindings (Binding)
Bookbinding (Binding) (Search for a specific year as a second phrase)
Brocade bindings (Binding)
Cathedral bindings (Binding)
Chained bindings (Binding)
Coptic bindings (Binding)
Cosway bindings (Binding)
Cottage style bindings (Binding)
Cottonian Library book covers (Binding)
Cuir-ciselâe bindings (Binding)
Dentelle bindings (Binding)
Dos-a-dos bindings (Binding)
Doublures (Binding)
Emblematic bindings (Binding)
Embroidered bindings (Binding)
Etruscan bindings (Binding)
Fan style bindings (Binding)
Fanfare bindings (Binding)
Flap bindings (Binding)
Fore-edge paintings (Binding)
Fur bindings (Binding)
Gauffered edges (Binding)
Girdle books (Binding)
Goatskin bindings (Binding)
Gold tooled bindings (Binding)
Greek style bindings (Binding)
Grotesque bindings (Binding)
Hollis bindings (Binding)
Interlace bindings (Binding)
Islamic bindings (Binding)
Jansenist style bindings (Binding)
Lace bindings (Materials) (Binding)
Lacquered bindings (Binding)
Landscape bindings (Binding)
Manuscript waste (Binding)
Masonic bindings (Binding)
Metal bindings (Binding) Used only for non-precious metal bindings; search Treasure bindings for precious metal bindings,
Middle Hill boards (Binding)
Molded leather bindings (Binding)
Mosaic bindings (Binding)
Mudâejar bindings (Binding)
Needlepoint bindings (Binding)
Painted bindings (Binding)
Papier-mãachâe bindings (Binding)
Penitential bindings (Binding)
Pictorial cloth bindings (Binding) (Search by country and/ or by date of publication as separate phrase) Used for publisher's pictorial cloth bindings from ca. 1870-1920.
Pigskin bindings (Binding) Used alone if not blind tooled; also search Blind tooled bindings (Binding)
Printed waste (Binding)
Prize bindings (Binding)
Publishers' bindings (Binding) Search as a second phrase To 1800 for early examples
Punch-dotting (Binding)
Settle bindings (Binding)
Shagreen bindings (Binding)
Somber bindings (Binding)
Tortoise shell bindings (Binding)
Tracery (Binding)
Treasure bindings (Binding)
Velvet bindings (Binding)


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Incunabula

Works printed before 1501 (known as incunabula) and owned by any Yale Library receive a Local Subject tracing -- Incunabula in Yale Library. In the Advanced Search screen you may search either this term as a phrase or all of these.

Example:



In addition, the country, city, printer, and date (in that order) are also recorded as a Local Subject tracing. When searching, for works printed by Richard Pynson search: England. London. Pynson, Richard, ca 1498. You may also search separately on any individual element.

Example:



Sometimes the date in these entries will be more explicit than year, such as day/month/year (24 May 1487). You may also broaden the search using truncating the date with a ? (e.g. 149?)

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Last updated December 16, 2003. ellen.cordes@yale.edu
URL is http://www.library.yale.edu/orbis/brblsubj.htm/