June 8, 2011
[Note: This article was first posted on 8 June 2011; the links were updated on 9 June 2018.]
I prepared the following set of links for the class I’m teaching at the Rare Book School next week, “Law Books: History and Connoisseurship.” Colleagues and readers of this blog might find some of them useful or interesting. If you want to know where I spend my time online, here are a few hints…
Online library catalogues
- WorldCat: Public-access version of the largest union catalogue of library holdings world-wide.
- KVK - Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog: Meta catalog of over 50 national library catalogs, regional library catalogs, and union catalogs.
- ESTC - English Short Title Catalogue (British Library): 460,000 items published between 1473 and 1800 mainly, but not exclusively, in English, published
mainly in the British Isles and North America, from the collections of the British Library and over 2,000 other libraries. - Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (British Library): “The international database of 15th-century European printing created by the British Library with contributions from institutions worldwide.”
- MORRIS: Online catalog for the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.
- Yale University Library
Resources on Book Terminology
- ILAB Glossaries: A multi-lingual collection of glossaries, including a PDF of John Carter & Nicholas Barker, ABC for Book Collectors (8th ed. 2006).
- Matt D. Roberts & Don Etherington, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books (1982).
- Publishers’ Bindings Online: PBO Glossary of Terms
- Antiquarian Book Terminology and Abbreviations (D.J. McAdam’s Website for Book Collectors
- Book Sizes (Books & Book Collecting website): An exhaustive list and description of formats & sizes.
Cataloging Resources
- Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Cataloger’s Reference Shelf
- Glossary of Common Latin Terms Found in Imprints of Early Printed Books
- Latin Place Names File, RBMS
Internet Databases for Rare & Used Books
- AddALL: Searches 24 online databases of used and rare books in North America and Europe (including ILAB and ABE), with the option of restricting searches to selected databases.
- ViaLibri: Designed especially for rare & collectible books. It allows you to permanently filter out print-on-demand books from your search results (yay!). Another great feature is the ability to search 72 library catalogs, including WorldCat (public version), KVK, ISTC, ESTC, and dozens of other union catalogs, national library catalogs, and individual library catalogs.
- BookFinder.com: Searches almost 100 listing services (like ABE), online bookstores, and even “rental services” (!) for new, used, and rare books.
- International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB): Restricted to listings from member booksellers. Offers an automated “wants” notification to registered users (registration is free), a searchable directory of member booksellers, multilingual glossaries of bookseller terms, Carter’s ABC for Book Collectors in PDF format, a calendar of book fairs, and a large “Library” of articles on the book trade, collecting, and related topics. ILAB’s U.S. affiliate, the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) offers most of the same features, but is limited to U.S. dealers.
- AbeBooks.com: Registered users can create automated “wants” lists, and are notified by e-mail of matching books.
Book Collecting Resources
- The Biblio Book School
- Checking Book Values on the Web (Bookride blog)
- Ian J. Kahn, “An alternative list of the Top 20 Sites for Book Collectors”, in The Fine Books Blog, 12 May 2010
- Nigel Borwood, “10 Web Book Searching Tips”, in the Bookride blog, 14 May 2010
- Rare Book Hub (formerly Americana Exchange): In addition to subscription databases of auction and sales records, it offers a free monthly newsletter and book auction calendar.
- Fine Books & Collections Magazine: Their website offers a free e-newsletter, plus calendars of upcoming auctions and book fairs.
Preservation
- Northeast Document Conservation Center
- Collections Care (Library of Congress)
- Conservation Online (CoOL)
- Preservation FAQ (U. of Illinois Library)
Legal History Resources
- American Society for Legal History
- English Legal History: Duke Law research guide
- Famous Trials: By Professor Douglas Linder, U. of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.
- H-Law: The listserv of the American Society for Legal History
- Legal History Blog: Mainly U.S. legal history.
- Rechtshistorie: By Otto Vervaart, a Dutch legal historian. This site has a thorough and wide-ranging set of annotated bibliographies and links to legal history resources, in English and Dutch. See also Vervaart’s excellent Rechtsgeschiedenis Blog.
- Tarlton Guides: Legal History: A well-organized and comprehensive guide to both print and online resources.
– MIKE WIDENER, Rare Book Librarian
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