Tulane University's
Louisiana Research Collection

The thousands of manuscript collections in Jones Hall may seem mysterious and remote, but we’re in the process of making them more discoverable, both to on-campus users and to researchers across the world. Many of our unique items will be digitized for preservation and widespread access. Detailed inventories of the collections are being more fully written, scanned, and made accessible on the internet. Collections are being methodically cataloged for inclusion in WorldCat and the Howard-Tilton catalog. Within the catalog, keyword searching may be the primary method being used by many students. However, it’s important to know that the traditional Library of Congress subject headings are being assigned to the collections as they are cataloged, just as they are for books, serials, and holdings in all formats. These headings provide another powerful technique of discovering the fascinating contents of the Louisiana Research Collection, and pulling together sources of various types. A new se...

Published books may be considered rare or scarce, but such published materials are often owned by many different libraries. Manuscript collections, however, are unpublished and truly unique. Our extensive manuscript holdings at Tulane have traditionally been made accessible to researchers who are physically present in the Special Collections Reading Room, through very detailed hard-copy finding aids and catalog cards of various vintages. The award-winning Special Collections web site has served to publicize some of our most significant holdings. We have now started including records representing our collections in the international WorldCat database, as well as our local online catalog. These catalogs act as discovery tools which enable remote scholars to learn of the existence of our one-of-a-kind collections held at Tulane. It is hoped that in the future, images of many of the materials themselves will be made viewable online as digital surrogates, helping support the long-term need...