The University of Nottingham, England holds many large family archives and collections of manuscripts. These are avilable for research and are consulted by scholars from all over the world. At present several projects are in hand which aim to create networked databases containing catalogue descriptions of selected collections. These will be searchable on the internet via the Library Home Page.
This presentation concerns a particular aspect of the work on one of the projects, that which is developing a detailed computerised catalogue of the Portland Literary Manuscripts at Nottingham. The Collection consists of material from the library of the Dukes of Portland at Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. Much of the material is late 17th century and early 18th century, with a particular strength in Restoration satiric verse, often in loose sheet form. The Collection has been regularly used for many decades, but researchers have often been frustrated by its very brief catalogue.
The project team has been working at Nottingham since September 1995, and will finish its work in late 1996. It is jointly led by Lynn Hulse and Ruby Reid Thompson, and supported by Jennifer Hall.
The database, which contains approximately 5,500 records, will enable remote-site researchers to establish much more precisely what is held at Nottingham. Descriptions will provide the obvious details evident from the manuscripts themselves (titles, first and last lines, known authors etc), but will also include findings based on the project team's research into questions such as provenance, ascription, and date of copy.
The physical descriptions provided for each manuscript are very detailed. They include a verbal description of each watermark and any associated countermark as well as their dimensions. The dimensions of the physical item itself are also provided and combined with handwriting analysis help to support conclusions about provenance, authorship and copyist identity. In the course of the work comparative study has also been made of evidence in other associated archives at Nottingham. Watermarks of dated historical documents have been recorded and analysed in order to extend the framework of reference for investigation of the literary papers.
My paper will discuss the methodology and findings of the project in greater detail, and indicate ways in which this corpus of physical data could develop in its own right as a bank of paper evidence.