2004/11/01 by Joby Topper · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Archaeology #Art history #Bequest #Computer science #Digital and Traditional Archives Management #Exhibition #History #Law #Library science #Museums and Cultural Heritage #Political science #Special collections
paper · doi:10.1179/lib.2004.20.3.183
openalex publication_date 2004/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This paper is an historical survey of the organization and management of the Francis Douce Collection at the Bodleian Library and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, from its bequest in 1834 to the Douce Centenary Exhibition. Though certain portions of the bequest were overlooked during the first Douce catalogue project, Bodleian and Ashmolean administrators and staff brought this large, diverse collection into order by 1934 with invaluable assistance from local and visiting scholars, both paid and volunteer, from undergraduate assistants, and from their counterparts at the British Museum. They laid a broad foundation for subsequent catalogue-projects and management decisions involving the Douce bequest. In the absence of a comprehensive digital library and online-catalogue for the Douce Collection, knowledge of its physical arrangement and catalogue accessibility remains essential to researchers and research facilitators.