Library catalogue notes of Isaac Smith, ca. 1789

Thirteen slips of paper with fragments of handwritten alphabetical lists created by Isaac Smith presumably in his capacity as Harvard Librarian. Most of the entries are surnames or single-word subjects. For example, one slip with "M" entries includes: milway, miracles, miraculous, Mitchell, and Mitchell. Some of the lists have struck-through words or have entries annotated with numbers and the abbreviations "o" and "bk." The verso of one leaf has a brief, undated note regarding the transfer of books between Mr. Hilliard and Mr. Smith.

Title supplied by cataloger.

A note with the calculation of the length of the lines in the library was removed from this collection and cataloged as part of the Baldwin family papers (HUM 105) in the Harvard University Archives.

Isaac Smith (1749-1829), a Harvard Librarian from 1788 to 1791, was born in Boston on May 7, 1749. He received an AB from Harvard in 1767 and an AM in 1770. In 1774, he became a tutor at the College and served until 1775 when he traveled to England. In England, Smith was ordained as the minister of the Sidmouth Presbyterian chapel. In 1784, Smith returned to Massachusetts and preached for two years in eastern Massachusetts before being appointed to a three-year term as Harvard College Librarian. Smith served as librarian from March 1788 until April 1791, and during that time helped compile a catalog of the College library, Catalogus Bibliothecae Harvardianae Cantabrigiae Nov-Anglorum, which was published in 1790. In 1791, he became the preceptor of the Dummer Academy in Byfield, Mass. Smith resigned from the Academy in 1809 and returned to Boston where he died on September 30, 1829.

Additional library records, including some written by Smith, are available in the Early Catalogs and Shelflists of the Harvard College Library (UAIII 50.15.30) in the Harvard University Archives.