Contents and Arrangement
Online

Acton, 1758

1 box

Collection Overview

Collection Description & Creator Information

Arrangement

The basic arrangement and description of the collection was the work of Chalfant Robinson (1871-1946), a professor of Classics and Curator of Medieval History (or Curator of Medieval Manuscripts). The Library had originally planned to calendar the collection after each item had been fully identified and arranged by place (diocese) and date, but the plans were not completed by the time of Robinson's death. Instead, large parts of the collection were largely kept as received in "letter boxes" organized by century and country in order to help illustrate the history of European script and facilitate paleographical study; this scheme sometimes resulted in discrete series of items retaining the order in which the documents were found when purchased. Robinson provided descriptions for approximately 224 of the 263 boxes of the documents. The remaining documents were described by successive manuscript curators of Princeton, including Jean F. Preston and Don C. Skemer.

The Fabriano Documents were described by J. Melvin Edelstein (b. 1924), when he was at John Hopkins University. Fifteen documents from this collection, including a Fabriano document from 999, had been retained by The Scheide Library before the collection was donated and are now described in the Princeton University Library online catalog. The Lawrence Slade Collection (boxes 165-194) was described in 1992-1993 by Leslie Tuttle, a graduate student in the History Department.

During 2002-2003, Sharon Strulowitz integrated the various sources of descriptive information about the documents in the collection into a Microsoft Access database. A printout from that database, listing the documents by country (then place name and date), constitutes thepresent finding aid.

Researchers will note that a small number of items have been omitted from this listing. These items, primarily textual material, are described in the catalog of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library. For further questions on these materials please consult Don C. Skemer, Curator of Manuscripts.

Collection History

Appraisal

No appraisal action taken.

Processing Information

Inventory produced from spreadsheet at http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/scheidedocs/database.xls using automated processes.

Readers are advised that the data in this finding aid and underlying spreadsheet contains corrupt data due to character constraints in the original database. This information cannot be recovered. Any data possibly truncated as a result has been indicated with an ellipsis ("[...]").

During 2022, restrictions on this collection were lifted as part of a restrictions review project.

Access & Use

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research use.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

Credit this material:

Acton; John Hinsdale Scheide Collection, C0704, Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Location:
Firestone Library
One Washington Road
Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
(609) 258-3184
Storage Note:
  • Firestone Library (hsvm): Box 233

Find More

Other Finding Aids

The Scheide Documents Database consists of 7323 records, each containing seven fields or elements: item number, date, country, place name, type, note and expanded note. The item number is the unique key of each record: it is a hybrid of the box number and document number. "74-2003" means, for example, Box 74 and Document 2003. The date is the year date of the document, often an approximation due to the differences in calendar years. Country is based on the modern location of the place name (source or place of origination) of the document, except that "Papacy" is used as the "country" for all papal documents, regardless of source. The majority of the documents are from France, England, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The place name is given, in most cases, as the modern form of the village, town, or city from where the document originated. Type indicates the form or genre of the document, such as legal document, marriage certificate, deed, letter, and will. Additional descriptive information is provided in the note field, which, if necessary, spills over into the expanded note. The following printout of the database records has been arranged first by country, then by place name and date, in order to facilitate research about specific geographical places:http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/scheidedocs/database.xls