Rare Books resources for historians Emily Dourish Rare Books department, Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library

Today’s session Introduction to print resources The major databases for English language material Specialist databases for different subjects Hands-on practice Anything you have found particularly useful?

Print bibliographical resources B 3-figures collection in the Rare Books Reading Room Lists available as classification scheme or subject index Reference books from other reading rooms can be transferred to Rare Books

Card catalogues in the Rare Books room Royal Commonwealth Society Provenance: Class Adv, general ownership Chapbooks War reserve collection Almanacs Ballads

Searching for provenance online Incunabula ownership indices “former owner”, “annotator”, “donor” in Newton search as ‘Relator term’ British armorial bindings database

ESTC: Everything English to 1800 ESTC: the English Short-Title Catalogue Based on print works; online is much larger with much more functionality libraries, 470,000+ titles, 3 million+ items Freely accessible anywhere in the world

Titles in ESTC Image by Olaf Simons, Wikimedia Commons

Where they were published Olaf Simons, Wikimedia Commons

Using ESTC Searchable by numerous fields Limits can be added Holdings listed where known; there may be others. Classmarks and copy specific information incomplete Limiting searches by holding library: UL is bC (can be very slow, we have 80,000 holdings) Save your records, then them to yourself

Moving from ESTC to digital copies EEBO: Early English Books Online For books up to 1640, note the “STC number” eg For books , note the “Wing number” eg A1234 ECCO: Eighteenth-Century Books Online For books note the “ESTC citation number” eg T12345

EEBO: up to 1700 Search directly or link from ESTC where available 130,000 digitised books 40,000 with searchable keyed text: very reliable Images mostly taken from microfilms, so black and white only Can save or print individual pages

ECCO: Search directly, or link from ESTC where available 200,000 digitised books All have been OCRed so full text searchable; can be less reliable “Subject area” to narrow your search Result of free text search highlights your hit on the page – easy to find /bookmark/save pages, make citations

Specialist resources See handout for resources by subject area Have a go! Any questions?

What do you use? Are there any resources you find particularly useful? Anything you think we should cover next time? Staff in the Rare Books Room can always help or