Incunabula Short Title Catalogue

Incunabula Short Title Catalogue

The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) is an electronic bibliographic database maintained by the British Library which seeks to catalogue all known incunabula. The database lists books by individual editions, recording standard bibliographic details for each edition as well as giving a brief census of known copies, organised by location. It currently holds records of over 29,000 editions.The British Library. Incunabula Short Title Catalogue. http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/index.html ]

History

Previous efforts to comprehensively catalog 15th century printing include Georg Wolfgang Panzer's "Annales Typographici ab Artis Inventae Origine ad Annum MD" (1793-97) and Ludwig Hain's "Repertorium Bibliographicum" (1822). Hain’s work was later supplemented by Copinger's Supplement and Recihling's "Appendices", which would pave the way for "Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke" (1925). The "Gesamtkatalog" was the most comprehensive catalog of incunables to date (and still offers more in-depth information than ISTC),Needham, P. (1993). Incunable catalogs. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America v. 87, No. 1, p. 371-2] but in recent decades work on the catalog has slowed to such a degree that the goal of cataloging all extant incunables under the GW’s system is indefinitely far-off. Needham, P. (1998). Counting incunables: The IISTC CD-ROM. The Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 3/4, p. 456-529]

The ISTC was created to establish a system of incunable cataloging that was simple enough to be expanded quickly, bringing the goal of a complete incunable catalog back into focus. Furthermore, the ISTC would use standardized entries that could be entered into a machine-searchable database.

Work on the ISTC began in 1980 under the leadership of the British Library's Lotte Hellinga. Frederick R. Goff's "Incunabula in American Libraries" (1973) was the first pre-existing catalog to be keyed into ISTC's database. Besides providing the catalog's first 12,900 entries, Goff's system for classifying information about incunables formed the basis for the structure of ISTC's records. Entries for all of the incunables in British Library and the Italian union catalog (IGI) were added next, followed by other national incunable catalogs. Hellinga, L. and Goldfinch, J.E. (eds). (1987). Bibliography and the study of 15th-century civilisation: Papers presented at a colloquium at the British Library 26-28 September 1984. London: the British Library.]

Records

ISTC records retain many characteristics of the records from Goff's census. Each record represents one edition of a work. Information such as author, title, printer, place of printing, year of printing, language, and format is entered into discrete fields to make the records searchable by a computer. Catalogue entries are reduced to a standard form, for ease of indexing and access, which includes the use of standard names for authors and printers - a major issue in an era where the use of Latinised names and vernacular ones interchangeably was common - and contemporary English names for places. Dates are reduced to conventional years where possible. [ [http://138.253.81.72/~cheshire/istc/about.html About the ISTC] ]

cope and Coverage

The ISTC has recorded 29,244 editions to date, although some of the records included in that number are actually 16th century works that were included in previous incunable catalogs in error, so the number of true incunabula recorded is 27,460.The British Library. Incunabula Collections. http://www.bl.uk/collections/hoinc.html] The number of extant incunabula is estimated to be approximately 28,000 editions, which puts ISTC extraordinarily close to completing its goal of total coverage. Documenting these last few hundred editions is a tremendous undertaking, as the works are scattered in unknown locations in many countries, leaving bibliographers with no organized way to search for them except to "look everywhere". Needham, P. (1998). Counting incunables: The IISTC CD-ROM. The Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 3/4, p. 456-529]

While the ISTC is unsurpassed in coverage, it does not offer the same level of detail as the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke or the numerous collection catalogs that are available. Rather, the ISTC complements these resources by providing a searchable index of editions, referring to other catalogs and bibliographies for further detail. ISTC does not include information about individual copies of a work as standard, though a brief census of confirmed locations is provided, and may contain brief notes. Needham, P. (1993). Incunable catalogs. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America v. 87, No. 1, p. 371-2]

In general the ISTC only covers extant editions, although records exist for some works that were sufficiently well-documented before being lost to fire or other calamities.

An illustrated edition of the ISTC was made available on CD-ROM in 1998. The addition of illustrations offers important information about a book's layout, format, and printing type. The images represent samples of each text rather than the full text. The British Library. Incunabula Collections. http://www.bl.uk/collections/hoinc.html]

External links

* [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/index.html Incunabula Short Title Catalogue] at the British Library

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Incunabula Short Title Catalogue — Herkunft der Inkunabeln im ISTC nach Region[1] Der Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC, deutsch Inkunabel Kurztitelkatalog) ist ein von der British Library betreutes Projekt zur Erstellung eines internationalen Kataloges …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Short title catalogue — A short title catalogue (or catalog ) is a bibliographical resource which lists printed items in an abbreviated fashion, recording the most important words of their titles. The term is commonly encountered in the context of early modern books,… …   Wikipedia

  • Universal Short Title Catalogue — Der Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) ist eine elektronische Gesamtbibliographie aller erhaltenen Druckwerke, die im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert in Europa erschienen sind. Das Projekt wird von der schottischen Universität Saint Andrews mit… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Incunabula — (lat. „Windeln, Wiege“) ist: der englische Begriff für Inkunabel, mit beweglichen Lettern gedruckte Schriften Incunabula (Album), Musikalbum der Gruppe Autechre (1993) Incunabula (Computerspiel), Computerspiel von Avalon Hill (1984) Incunabula… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • INCUNABULA — Introduction The term incunabula (or cradle books ) denotes books printed before 1500, including broadsheets, or other typographical products printed from letterpress composed of movable type. The first book known to be printed by Gutenberg in… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Incunable — Incunabula redirects here. For other uses, see Incunabula (disambiguation). Page from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, printed in red and black by Peter Schöffer (Mainz, 1471). The page exhibits a rubricated initial letter U and… …   Wikipedia

  • Inkunabel — Valerius Maximus, gedruckt in Mainz von Peter Schöffer, 18. Juli 1471 Inkunabeln oder Wiegendrucke (von lat. incunabula, „Windeln, Wiege“) sind die mit beweglichen Lettern gedruckten Schriften, die zwischen 1454 nach dem Druck der Gutenberg Bibel …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Incunabulum — An incunabulum is a book, single sheet, or image that was printed mdash; not handwritten mdash; before the year 1501 in Europe. The origin of the word is the Latin incunabula for swaddling clothes , used by extension for the infancy or early… …   Wikipedia

  • Octavo — For other uses, see Octavo (disambiguation). Octavo (abbreviated 8vo or 8°) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were… …   Wikipedia

  • Printing press — For the history and technology of movable type, see Movable type. Printing press from 1811, exhibited in Munich, Germany …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”