ILLUSTRATED ISTC ON CD ROM

The Illustrated Incunabula Short-Title Catalog on CD ROM is a bibliography in progress since 1980 under the direction of the British Library. In cooperation with other libraries throughout the world holding incunables, the goal is to make an online database of bibliographic records with selected images describing all extant items printed in the infancy of machine printing. An incunable is an item printed using moveable type from the beginning of printing presses in Europe in the mid 1400s down to 1500. This CD ROM contains 27,873 editions, of which 26,163 are true incunables. The project is 90% complete with this disk.

There are illustrations of a few pages from about 8% of the entries on the disk, about 2000 records. This is not a full-text database. The illustrations are drawn from the research used to make Project Incipit. Primary Source Media sells a microfilm set called Incunabula, the Printing Revolution in Europe, 1455-1500; this contains the images which were digitized for the ISTC. M.S.U. Libraries does not own this film set; we do have the guide to part one of the set, Mainz to 1480, in Main at Z 240 f.I55 1992. The purpose of the illustrations is to document the editions, like a transcription in a printed catalog, by showing the beginnings and endings of text, the existence of other printed matter, printers' devices, colophons, and all pages necessary to identify the edition and to indicate the basic structure of the book. Extensively illuminated or annotated copies were not filmed/digitized because these features would have been added after the printing of the item. The goal of the database is to give a record of the item as it left the printing press.

Each record in the database represents a single edition of a work, to which information about copies held by various libraries and institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Vatican, The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Russia, Eastern Europe, Scandinavian countries, Australasia, Japan, South American, Asian, and African countries is attached. Records are drawn from a variety of printed sources, some of which have existed for a very long time; in the help screens for the bibliography field online one may view the list of these printed sources. In addition, Germany and Italy, probably among other countries, are revising their entries from the old, printed sources. Incunables making their way into public institutions from private holders are newly described as the project goes along, corrections are made to existing entries, and backlogs of cataloging are entered. The M.S.U. Libraries' copies of the book catalogs from which much of this database is built are to be found in Consulting Reference, Main, and oversize at Z 240.

The separately searchable fields include the following:

Author (personal names in Latin, rather than the vernacular, where possible; no cross references to alternate names to speak of)
Short-title of the work (**this is the only subject access--there is no subject field)
Printer
Place of Publication (in English)
Date of Publication
ISTC Accession number (assigned so the file is arranged alphabetically by main entry)
Format (the size, folio, quarto, octavo, etc.)
Language (of the main part of the text)
Notes (on the cataloging source, the author, the text, the printing, etc.)
Bibliography (references to the work in the existing printed catalogs and bibliographies)
Year of Publication (standardized from the date of publication field; for date range searches)
Locations (of extant copies; see 6. below. With certain exceptions today's place names are used)
Image Information (information on the library and call number of the copy from which the images were taken, descriptions of key pages filmed, folio number, signature, contents)

One may also search across all fields at once, in the "All Fields" search. One may combine terms using and, or, and not within fields and between fields. Each of the indexes above has a Browse Index containing all the words and entries in that index. From these one may fill out the search form for each field. One may use the Printing Areas feature to search for printing in one city or in groups of cities. It is also possible to confine one's search to the true incunables, those printed before 1500, at the touch of the Pre-1500bbutton on the lower right of the search strategy screen.

Below are some search basics. Once you are in the database, refer to the online help manual for assistance.

DIRECTIONS

The database is on the CD ROM Server. Choose a computer which has the Server loaded onto it. Open the CD ROM server by double clicking on its icon. Highlight Illustrated Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue. Click on Search. When the title page of the ISTC appears click on "continue" in the lower right corner.

The initial choices are between Standard Search and Predefined Search. The Predefined searches include Mainz to 1480, Classics in Translation, Images of the World, Chronicles/Historiography, Verguilius Maro, and Greek Texts. Unless you wish to search one of these, click on Standard Search.

On the Standard Search Form, fill out your request. Keep these details in mind:

1. "And" between terms is understood unless another boolean operator is entered within a field or between fields. But, if multiple terms are selected from a Browse index, "or" is understood between these.

2. Truncation. To truncate any number of characters use the asterisk, *. To truncate one letter, use the question mark, ?

3. The Browse indexes

If you are at a loss for how to retrieve the spelling you desire or need ideas for topics, authors, etc. to search for, click on the names of the fields to open the Browse indexes for each field. Either type in the spelling you seek to see how it is entered in the database, or scroll down looking for it or for ideas. Highlight the item, then click twice. This places the term in the search box below the Browse list and will copy it to the search strategy screen after you click on OK.

Most Browse indexes may be searched two ways, by individual word (every word in that field) or by entry (complete phrases in the field). The default is by word. This can be changed by clicking on the word or entry button at the top of the browse box.

4. To change the boolean connections between fields click on "Options" at the very top of the screen near the top left corner. On the drop down menu that appears, click on "See connections." This causes a row of boxes to appear at the left edge of each field on the search screen. Click on the down arrow in the boxes if you wish to change the connection between any fields to something other than "and."

To change the boolean connections between words within a field, just type "or," "not," etc. between terms. You may also use adj, same(s), near(s) as described in the manual on pp. 39-43. You may nest using parentheses, for example: (london and westminster) and (english or french).

5. To search for a range of dates of publication, do this in the year of publication field, not in the date of publication field. Do it thus: 1480 to 1490. < 1495 > 1460 For other possible ways to do this, see p. 44 of the manual.

6. To look for entries held by particular libraries, click on "Help" at top right. Click on "search" at the top of the help screen. Type "locations" into the search box and enter. Click on the letter the library begins with. This displays a list of the library location codes beginning with that letter. Write down the code for the institution(s) you desire. Type these codes into the locations line on the search strategy screen with "or" between. **Clicking on "U" to find institutions beginning with "U" did not work. Michigan State University is MiSUL.

7. Preferred attributions. Many times, the printed sources disagree about which place of publication, printer, and date of publication are correct for an edition. The first imprint listed in a record is called the preferred attribution; this is the one that today is thought to be correct. To confine your search to preferred attributions only, click on "Preferred attributions" at the top of the search strategy screen. In this way, you may find only those editions currently believed to be attributed to a particular printer, place, or date.


8. Starting the number crunching

Pressing enter after typing in a search statement in a field will cause the search of that field to be processed. The number of results retrieved shows at the right side of that line. If you fill out search topics in several fields tabbing from one to the next, and press enter after typing them all in, the whole search will be processed, using "and" between the fields, unless you have specified otherwise (see 4 above). If you have gone back and forth between browse indexes and the search strategy screen several times, click on "update search" near the top middle of the screen, to be sure the machine understands all your final choices.

**Unfortunately, no overall result number for your search as a whole displays anyplace.

9. Viewing records and images

Click on "List" at the top of the screen to see your results. This gives the basic bibliographic details and has a box at the left of the entry with an open book in it if there are images of the item in the database which may be viewed. Double click on the open book to see the image(s). These display on the right side of the screen. Click on the drop down box at the top of the window containing the image to move between the images displayed. The list display is in ISTC accession number order, which is by author, or title if there is no author.

Click on "Full" to see the full entry for the highlighted item in List. Use the up and down arrow keys to move between the items in the list or use the scroll down bar. If there are images of the item, click on the image button at the top of the window to see them. Click on "List" again to return to the List display. Click on "Search" to return to the search strategy screen. To jump to a particular record in the display, click on "Edit" at the top of the screen and select "jump" from the menu which drops down.

After opening an image, click on the box at the extreme right corner of the screen. This places the image in the center of the screen, obscuring the full or list display. The image information description displays at the right of the screen. Place the cursor on the image. Click left to enlarge the image. Click right to reduce the image.

10. To print records and images

**It is not possible to save either records or images to disk. Trying to do this crashes the machine.

To collect records to be saved for printing, click on the box to the left of the entry in the List display, or on "Select record" at the bottom of the full display. If you want them to print out in a particular order, click on "Edit" at top, then click on "sort" from the drop down menu. You can sort by year of publication, language, format, preferred printer, preferred place of publication and title, in either ascending or descending order.

To create the print command, click on "File" at the top left of the screen. Choose whether to print the current article (the record on the screen), tagged articles (those records you selected), or all. Choose whether you wish to print only the record or only the image, or both. Click OK. If you are using a computer in the Reference area or the Electronic Resources Help Room, your print job will be printed on a laser printer in that area at no charge.

To create a print command from the images portion of the screen, click on the printer icon at the right of the image. A menu asks you to choose printing of the zoomed image or the full image. Click on which you desire.

Agnes Widder
Humanities Bibliographer
1-22-99, 1-17-02