Microforms Research Collections: Chaucer Society Publications

Location: Cabinet Z-7 in Room 320D.

Scope: Series 1 of this collection consists of different texts of Chaucer's works. Series 2 includes critical works as well as texts. The publisher of this microcard collection states that the Chaucer Society was founded in part to allow “students of him see how far the best unprinted manuscripts of his works differed from the unprinted texts.”

How to search the collection: Very few of the Chaucer Society Publications can be located in the online catalog. For those that are, the series statement (in parentheses on the catalog record) gives the number within the series of that particular title as well as whether it is in Series 1 or 2. A list of all titles in this collection may be found in the green Microform Subject Collections binder in the Multimedia Collection. This list is arranged in order by the series number which is given before the bibliographic information about the title. The microcards are also in order by these series numbers. For many titles there are multiple series numbers. They are filed numerically by the FIRST series number attached to the title.

The best way to access items in this collection is to use the WorldCat database (from the library’s webpage under “Find Databases” click on “W”). If you put in a keyword such as “Canterbury” in the first box and put “Chaucer Society” in the second box using the drop down menu to limit this to “Title—Series Title” and change the Subtype Limit “any format” to “microform,” you will get a list of all items in this series dealing with the Canterbury Tales. After you click on the desired title to get the full record, find the series statement which will tell you whether your title in in the first or second series and the series number within that series. Again if more than one series number is given, the microcards are arranged by the FIRST series number.