Rare Books Reference Guide

Rare books

• AbeBooks Glossary. Terminology used in the antiquarian book trade to describe books.
• BVMM: Bibliothèque virtuelle des manuscrits médiévaux , a virtual library of medieval manuscripts in French Libraries by the Institut de recherché et d’histoire des texts in Paris (IRHT-CNRS).
• Book History Online. This is a database of books and articles on the history of the printed book and libraries worldwide. It is based on the print serial publication Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries.
• Book Terminology. A list of brief definitions of terminolgy used to describe books, created by the IOBA, which holds copyright of the contents.
• Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology by Matt T. Roberts and Don Etherington.
• Bound to Please: A History of Fine Leather Bindings. An online exhibit of different bindings used in bookmaking.
• British Armorial Binding database. A comprehensive catalogue of coats of arms, crests, and other heraldic devices.
• A CENSUS OF PRINT RUNS FOR FIFTEENTH-CENTURY BOOKS
• CERL Portal. This database cross searches a number of European and Yalt's manuscript collection catalogues as well as the Hand Press Book database, which lists books printed between 1450 and 1830.
• CERL Thesaurus. This database has information about names and places associated with books printed in the hand press era (1450-1830), including variants. This is a reference tool for bibliographers and scholars of the history of the book. It supports internal linking between imprint places and imprint names, so that the user can see which printers are recorded in the CERL Thesaurus as having worked in a specific printing place, thus giving valuable new insights into book production in Europe in the hand-press eravery useful for determining variants and modern terminology for information about books, such as Lunnyng = London.
• CoOL: Conservation Online is a very extensive site with a great deal of information related to the conservation of books, paper, photographs, archives, artefacts and other material.
• Database of Bookbindings. A browsable and searchable illustrated database of different bindings held by the British Library.
• English Short Title Catalogue. Contains records for works printed in any language in England or its dependencies from the beginning of printing through the end of the eighteenth century, as well as works printed in English anywhere else in the world during that period. Includes the former Eighteenth-Century Short-Title Catalogue (ESTC) and the two print short-title catalogues covering 1475-1640 (Pollard & Redgrave) and 1641-1700 (Wing)
• Latin Place Names. A listing of Latin place names found in books published before 1801 and their equivalents in the venacular, as well as links to other useful sources of translation, such as Latin terms.
• Medieval Manuscript Manual. This site offers basic information about Medieval Manuscripts, including their production, structure and function. There is also a glossary. The site was created by the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University, Budapest.
• Melbourne Museum of Printing. An interesting site that explains various printing techniques, with many illustrations and an extensive glossary of type and printing terms.
• Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue. "Aims to provide increasingly complete listings of British books printed between 1801-1919. British books are taken to include all books published in Britain, its colonies and United States of America; all books in English wherever published; and all translations from English."
• Northeast Document Conservation Center. An authoritative online resource for information about the preservation of paper-based materials.
• ODLIS - Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science. This is the online edition of the work published by Libraries Unlimited with a number of useful entries for rare books.
• Piccard Collection of Watermarks. This is a database of 92 000 paper watermarks.
• Printers' Devices. A database of the "trademark" symbols used by printers.
• Printmaking Techniques. A brief history of historical book illustration techniques produced for the Anatomia online exhibit by the University of Toronto.
• Web Resources for the History of the Book. List organised by the Consortium of European Research Libraries. Sites are organised by: Bibliographical Data; History of the Book; Museums; Research Centres; Library Organisations; CERL Members; Itinerary of the Book; Cultural Studies and Other CERL Resources.

Other reference sources

• Canadian Publishers' Records. A database of archival holdings of papers relating to Canadian publishers and publishing in Canada.
• Palaeography: Reading Old Handwriting 1500 - 1800. An on-line reference and tutorial in palaeography created by the National Archives of the United Kingdom.