Rare Book Monthly
Search Through J.P. Morgan's Private Collection -- from Your Home
A Corsair search is simple and intutitive.
Work began on the project in 1997, a time when only a small percentage of the population had internet access. Some of the records were drawn from information on handwritten cards that predated the existence of the library; others were newly created for the venture. The entire project took countless hours of work, and $4 million to complete. Now you can access listings for almost everything in the library, with many of those listings providing extensive information, such as summaries of the content of letters, lengthy notes about provenance, or detailed descriptions of bindings. To see for yourself, simply click the following link, and to begin searching immediately, follow the link to "Search the Catalog:" http://corsair.morganlibrary.org
For those needing physical access to the Morgan's collection for research, the Reading Room has reopened, albeit in temporary quarters. The Library began a major renovation and expansion in 2003, with completion scheduled for spring 2006. The collections will close again in October until project completion next spring, but until then, the Reading Room is open Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. by appointment. The Morgan Library is located at 29 East 36th Street in New York. If you wish to be accredited for research at the library, you will need to fill out an application, and bring a letter of reference and a valid photo I.D. To make an appointment, either call the Reading Room at 212-590-0315, or contact it via email at readingroom@morganlibrary.org. Once the renovation has been completed in the spring, the Reading Room will again be open for longer hours.
Despite the limited hours and space, the Morgan reports that 532 readers made use of the collections for research last year. Among the topics were Napoleon I, George Plimpton, Edward Curtis, Manet's portraits of women, Mozart's Piano Sonata in A minor, medieval bookmarks, the use of gold leaf versus gold paint in illuminations, Henry VIII's library, bindings on fifteenth century books, and U.S. telecommunications before 1920. That leaves roughly an infinite number of subjects still to be pursued, with these wonderful collections awaiting your research.
This major project was accomplished through the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Arcana Foundation, The Alice Tully Foundation, The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Booth Ferris Foundation, The Florence Gould Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, IBM Corporation, Fay and Geoffrey Elliott, The Achelis Foundation, The New York Times Company Foundation, and others. The Homeland Foundation and J. Paul Getty Trust provided underwriting for the digital images and descriptions for the medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. Software was created by Endeavor Information Systems.
