Today I learned a new phrase: Separation List.
Included in the Burnap/Hyde Collection are a number of published volumes; mostly almanacs, some primers. For whatever reason, this topic never came up in my archives classes, and I never gave much thought to what you'd do with non-unique materials in an archival collection. Today I learned - step 1: you try to figure out what they are. Photos and printed material get taken out and sent to different departments at CHS, graphics and the library. Those departments decide what they accession and what they discard. Step 2: you try to figure out the correct way to cite the separated printed material in a separation list to include in the finding aid.
Step 1: Many of the alamancs had torn or missing covers, so figuring out what exactly they were was not as simple as might seem.
Step 2: Serials cataloging is confusing in the best of circumstances, but 19th Century pamphlets and alamacs often changed publishers, locations, and even titles from year to year. When I tried consulting WorldCat to find the "correct" citation I realized that there was no consensus. Each publication had 4 or 5 entries catalged different ways.
For example, the American Tract Society published a yearly almanac called, at times, The Christian Almanac for Connecticut, The Christian Almanac for Connecticut and Massachusetts, The Christian Almanac for the State of Connecticut, and The Christian Almanac for New-York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. They were published in Hartford, New York, and New Haven. But they were also the "same" publication in that they contained the same information and were sponsored by the same company.
This is how I decided to do it…
Burnap, Hyde & Post Family Papers MS 101941
Separation List
Photographs and objects have been transferred to the graphics and museum departments.
The following items were removed from the collection and do not appear in the finding aid:
Serials & Almanacs:
The Connecticut Register/The Connecticut Register and United States Calendar/Green's Almanack and Register for the State of Connecticut published by Samuel Green, New London, CT for the years 1804,1805,1810,1814,1816
Beer's Almanac 1813. published by Andrew Beers, Hartford, CT.
Marsh's Almanac 1819. published by William S. Marsh, Hartford, CT.
The Christian Almanack for New-York, Connecticut, and New-Jersey 1827. Published by the American Tract Society, New York, NY.
The Christian Almanac for Connecticut 1830. vol. II, no. 3. Published by the American Tract Society, Connecticut Branch.
The Christian Almanac for New-York, Connecticut, and New-Jersey 1835. Published by the American Tract Society, New York, NY.
The Illustrated Family Christian Almanac. 1856. Published by the American Tract Society, New York, NY.
The New England Primer published by Ira Webster, Hartford, CT after 1850.
The Connecticut Register: Being a State Calendar of Public Officers and Institutions for 1870. Published by Brown & Gross, Hartford, CT. 1870
Tee-Totaler's Minstrel (possibly the Washingtonian Tee-Totalers' Minstrel) published by John Slater, New York, New York. no date, missing cover.