The Pamphlet Collection

Index and Finding Aids

An integral part of the AGS Library collections is the wide variety of pamphlet material, which presently consists of 35,779 items.

The pamphlet materials were acquired, classified and catalogued by the AGS of New York staff and fall basically into four categories:

1. Reprints of pertinent articles.
2. Occasional papers and reports of government agencies, university departments, environmental groups, business corporations, scientific organizations, tourist bureaus and conferences. Included are typewritten manuscripts, published monographs, internal reports, lectures, etc.
3. Excerpts of important articles from journals not usually kept by the Society’s permanent collections.
4. Reprints that duplicate journals held by the AGSL but used for interlibrary loan transactions.

Pamphlets that arrived at the Society were stamped with the date and method of acquisition and were displayed weekly with the new books. They were classified in accordance with the systematic and regional classification schemes utilized by the library and cards were added to the catalog for all pamphlet items. Items were also included in Current Geographical Publications.

Of special note is the historic value of many of the items in the pamphlet collection. Among the items in the collection, which dates from the founding of the Society in 1852, are eyewitness accounts of historic events, biographies of renowned geographers written by their contemporaries, articles of geographical philosophy written by their exponents, and impressions and descriptions of many nineteenth century explorations by key participants. The research potential and value of these sources is limitless.

The Pamphlet Collection finding aid is organized by the regional classification system created by the AGS of New York. A 486 page document is converted to pdf and posted here for searching and browsing. Begin with the Index that lists the regional classification numbering system. Within each pdf document, use the ctrl-F search feature to search by keyword.  For assistance with this collection, contact the AGSL Reference staff at: agsl@uwm.edu or 414-229-6282.  

Index and Finding Aids

Credits

Erin McGrath, AGSL Student Assistant - processed, created a spreadsheet listing each item and placed them into archivally safe folders.

Comments for the AGSL? Send them to agsl@uwm.edu.