News
March 12, 2004
Dickinson College is pleased to announce the launching of a digital project titled "The Books of Isaac Norris."
"The Books of Isaac Norris" project presents a visual catalog of more than 1900 sixteenth and seventeenth century books donated in 1784 to the college by its namesake, John Dickinson, and his wife Mary (Norris) Dickinson. This website reproduces the short-title catalog information contained in the 1976 publication "The Books of Isaac Norris (1701-1766) at Dickinson College" and makes available images of the title pages of each book in the collection.
Isaac Norris, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and Speaker of the Pennsylvania State Assembly, actively purchased books through second-hand dealers in London to add to the library his father had begun before him. Norris's extensive marginal notes in various languages reflect his active use of this library. Following his death in 1766, the library passed to his daughter Mary, and nearly 20 years later a large selection from this library was given to the new college in Carlisle, PA. Today this collection forms the core of the rare book holdings at Dickinson College and represents the full breadth of liberal learning. The texts of such classic authors as Aristotle, Cicero, Euclid, Tacitus, and Xenophon sit among works of early modern thinkers like Galileo, Grotius, Leibnitz, Machiavelli, and Pascal.
"The Isaac Norris Collection" utilizes CONTENTdm digital collection management software to organize and present its materials online. ONTENTdm allows for the display of title pages of the books in the collection as well as detailed searching of the bibliographic data. Users may search not only for authors and titles, but also for specific printers and publishers, languages, or even previous owners of the books.
Any questions or comments about this project may be directed to Jim Gerencser (gerencse@dickinson.edu - Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at Dickinson College), or Michele Tourney (tourney@dickinson.edu - Project Archivist at The National Sporting Library).
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