Playbill collection

The Folger has approximately 250,000 playbills, most from late 18th and 19th century Britain and the United States. Unlike programs, which are multi-page documents, a playbill describes a performance on one side of one sheet of paper. Most surviving playbills are small handbills, though some are poster size.

Arrangement

Bill boxes and bill volumes

Most playbills in the Folger collection are arranged in City - Theater - Date order in boxes ("BILL Box" call numbers) or in bound volumes ("BILL Vol." call numbers). They are indexed on cards in the "Special Collections" section of the catalog room (the metal drawers on the right as you enter), but no information on the performances themselves are provided (no play names, no actor names). However, the London playbills in the collection were used by George Winchester Stone and others to compile The London stage, 1660-1800: a calendar of plays, entertainments & afterpieces, together with casts, box-receipts and contemporary comment (see Hamnet record) so their content can be found through that publication. Playbills personally examined by George Winchester Stone have a penciled "GWS" on the front (NOT a practice that continues).

Craven collection

453 playbills collected by Babette Craven are stored in the Art Vault, and indexed in a Filemaker Pro database that is currently only available to staff, or with staff assistance. Most are late 18th and early 19th century, from England.

Henderson collection

7,188 playbills form the bulk of the Henderson collection.

Other locations

Playbills acquired since about the 1980s are shelved at the end of the BILL Box/Vol section on Deck C, in accession number order, identified by a six-digit accession number and the prefix or suffix "PLAYBILL." Those acquired after 1997 have minimal-level records in Hamnet. Many other playbills have been bound into extra-illustrated books (particularly actor biographies and Shakespeare's works), manuscript volumes, and scrapbooks. Some of these are listed in the Playbills card file in the "Special Collections" section of the catalog room; some are briefly mentioned in Hamnet in Folger copy notes for the books.

Cataloging

This article is currently a draft.

These are draft guidelines for a project to create collection-level records for playbills classified as "BILL Box" and "BILL Vol.," expected to start Winter 2016.

Treat playbills as Vault material. As most playbills are fragile, collection-level records will be created based on shelflist cards, and confirmed with the physical items only as necessary to save wear and tear.

• Consider the theatre for which the playbills were created to be the main entry, unless there is a clear indication otherwise. Add in a 110 field, with "issuing body" as a relationship designator.
• Formulate titles according to DACS. Most titles will probably be something like "Collection of playbills from Covent Garden Theatre." Do not enclose the statement in brackets (in line with DACS and RDA 2.3.2.11); do include a 500 note on the title source.