Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering
Record
(HABS/HAER) Collections
Measured drawings, photographs, and data sheets documenting works
of American architecture and engineering
Collection digitized? Yes.
Most of the HABS and HAER documentation
is available in the Prints
and Photographs Online Catalog (http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html).
(The same images are presented on
the Library of Congress American
Memory site.)
The Historic American Buildings
Survey (HABS) and the Historic
American Engineering Record
(HAER) are collections of documentary
measured drawings, photographs,
and written historical and architectural
information for about 37,000
structures and sites
in the United States and its
territories. The U.S. Department
of the Interior is responsible
for the administration of these
surveys and creates the records
which are transferred to the
Library of Congress for service
and preservation. The American
Institute of Architects, which
cooperated with the Library
of Congress and the National
Park Service in forming HABS,
serves in an advisory capacity
for HABS (see the National
Park Service HABS/HAER site); the
American Society of Civil Engineers
provides
similar assistance with HAER
by
giving professional counsel,
financial assistance through
its local sections, and other
aid. Other professional engineering
societies such as the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers'
History and Heritage Committee
also aid HAER. Architectural
and engineering structures and
sites of almost every type,
including residential, commercial,
public, monumental, religious,
military, and industrial categories,
have been recorded and are part
of these collections. Various
building technologies
and materials, as well as periods
and styles from the 17th to
the 20th century are
represented.
Online Access
The most comprehensive way
to search the collection is
through the Prints
and Photographs Online Catalog
(PPOC); URL: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html.
PPOC is available in the Prints
and Photographs Division Reading
Room and from offsite
via the Web. HABS/HAER
records can be searched along
with all other records in
PPOC, or they can be searched
by themselves, by selecting
"Historic American Buildings
Survey/Historic American Engineering
Record" in the list of available
collections. The online
records include links to digitized
documentation: photographs,
drawings, data
pages, photo caption pages
and, sometimes, supplemental
materials. All but the most
recent documentation has been
digitized and made available
on the Web.
Since the National
Park Service's HABS and HAER programs create
new documentation each year, digital images will
continue to
be added to the online collections.
The first phase of digitization of the Historic
American Engineering Record
collection
was made possible by the generous
support of the Shell Oil Company Foundation.
An online search will definitely answer
questions such as what buildings
were recorded in Lynchburg,
Virginia. One can search
by name or address of a structure.
Where the data is available in catalog records,
you can also search by name
of architect/creator, names of owners of buildings,
building date, and current and/or
former use of the structure
(such as trolley barn). Since
1999 the HABS and HAER programs
have been working to review
systematically each survey in
order to add subject terms and
architect name to the 37,000
records in the online catalog.
Selected catalog cards which
could contain such information
have been digitized as "supplemental"
materials.
Photographers' and delineators' names are not
searchable online, but they can
be found within the documentation
itself.
The same HABS/HAER catalog records and
images that are presented in
PPOC are also presented on the
Library of Congress American
Memory site.
Use at the Library of Congress
Physical copies of all formal
HABS/HAER records may be consulted
in the Prints and Photographs
Reading Room
in the Library
of Congress' Madison Building.
Patrons are welcome to visit
the collection
and examine the
records and access tools in
person. (As a preservation measure,
the Library generally serves
surrogates, i.e., digital or
xerox copies, of the original
drawings.) HAER records from
Michigan through Wyoming are
offsite and are retrieved twice
daily
upon request.
Records processed between 1933
and 2003 are filed in binders
by shelflist number and arranged
by geographic hierarchical
order: state, county name, city
or
vicinity, and by the sequence
in which the building was
recorded within the given city
or
vicinity. Records processed
after 2003 are located at the
end of the 1933-2003 shelving
and are filed by state, then
by survey number.
The order for the material
for each structure in a binder
is:
- photographic materials, usually consisting of captioned
black and-white photographs, but also occasionally color
xeroxes made from duplicate color transparencies (some later
photographs
are preceded by photo caption pages);
- written historical and descriptive data;
- reduced-size copies of measured drawings (8 1/2 x 11 inches).
Photographic negatives and original full-size measured drawings
are filed separately.
A master card catalog, which
follows the hierarchical
geographic arrangement of the
documentation, provides an entry
for each structure
or site and lists the amount
of documentation and the shelflist
number. Several card indexes,
all in progress, have been developed
to supplement the geographic
catalog. The largest index is
by subject, which includes types
of buildings (such as barns),
specific materials (such as
stone buildings), and details
(such
as murals). The subject index
also includes building styles
ranging from Federal to International.
A smaller index lists structures
chronologically. Another card
index includes the
names of architects, engineers,
or firms, allowing a reader
interested in the work of a
particular architect or engineer
to determine which works by
that architect are included
in
HABS/HAER.
Field records
may exist for
some buildings,
and, if so,
are noted in
the online records
and in the HABS/HAER
card catalog,
as well as in
the book America
Preserved (see
below).
However, this informal documentation
is not included
in the
notebooks in the Reading Room
and access to
these nonstandard
materials is by special arrangement.
Arrangements
to view or copy
field records
must be made
in advance with
the Reference
Specialist
in American architecture.
Other published
tools for access
It has always been the intention of those responsible for
the surveys that they be accessible to people throughout the
country, and many state and national catalogs to the surveys
have been published over the years. For the 60th anniversary
of HABS and the 25th anniversary of HAER, an updated catalog, America
Preserved: A Checklist of Historic Buildings, Structures, and
Sites Recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey /
Historic American Engineering Record, was published by
the Library of Congress Cataloging
Distribution Service in 1995, and is available for $37
(telephone 800-255-3666).
The collection has been reproduced
in two microform publications.
All HABS measured drawings from
1933-1974 are available in a
66-reel publication which may
be ordered as a set or by reel
from the Library's Photoduplication
Service (telephone
202-707-5640). Microfiche of
all the documentation -- drawings,
photographs, and written histories
-- in the Library's cataloged HABS and HAER collections
as of 1988 was made by Chadwyck-Healey
and is available from ProQuest,
300 North Zeeb Road, P.O. Box
1346, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48106-1346
(telephone: 800-521-0600 ext.
2793; email: info@ilproquest.com).
Again, the entire set or individual
states may be ordered. These
microform publications are being
bought not only by libraries
throughout the country, but
by individuals who view them
on
machines at their area libraries.
Staff have prepared
reference aids that list selected
sites
relevant to frequently requested
themes, such as architect, building
types and styles. Reference
aids that are available online
can be found in the "Architecture" section of
the Prints and Photographs Division's
online "Images
Lists"
page.
Copies of all HABS and HAER materials which have been transferred
to and processed by the Library may be obtained through the
Library's Photoduplication Service (telephone: 202-707-5640;
email: photoduplication@loc.gov) which can provide price
information and describe ordering procedures.
While the Library of Congress
is not aware of any U.S. copyright
protection (see Title 17 U.S.C.)
or any other restrictions in
the HABS/HAER materials, there
may be content protected
by copyright law. Additionally,
the reproduction of some materials
may be restricted by privacy
or other rights. A rights statement
is available online at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
Credit Line: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division, Historic American Buildings Survey or Historic American
Engineering Record, Reproduction Number (Ex:"HABS,ILL,16-CHIG,33-2")
Compiled by: Marilyn Ibach, Reference Specialist. Last revised: October 2004.
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