by Jennifer Higham (Librarian)
Preparations for the move of the IHR library in Summer 2011 led to the rediscovery of 49 volumes detailing peerage claims, thought to be a gift from the House of Lords Library many years previously.
With the library move imminent, Alison Gage, the IHR library’s cataloguer, took on the daunting task of sorting out these somewhat obscure and dusty volumes. The records can be found on the catalogue by making a subject search for ‘peerage claims – Great Britain’.
A search on COPAC suggests that the IHR library holds one of the largest, if not the largest, catalogued collection of the peerage volumes in UK and Irish research libraries. Now, not only have they been catalogued, but the annual donation from the Friends of the IHR has allowed the library to conserve those volumes which were in a bad state of repair.