Key Resources

CERL Resources [CERL]

• The CERL Portal : Manuscripts and Early Printed Material
• Provenance Information
• Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI)
• The CERL Thesaurus
• The Heritage of the Printed Book Database (HPB)

The British Library

• Incunabula Short Title Catalogue
• English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)
• Database of Bookbindings
• Digitised Manuscripts
• Early Printed Books
• Digitised printed books (18th-19th century)

Electronic and Online Books

• Early English Books Online (EEBO)
• Early American Fiction 1789-1875
• Early English Prose Fiction
• Eighteenth Century Fiction
• PRDL: The Post-Reformation Digital Library
• Other Digital Libraries from PRDL
• The Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature
• Perseus Digital Library
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Book Arts and Construction

Paper Making

• Video: from the Centre of the Book, University of Iowa
• See the Centre's work here

Printers Ornaments

• Fleuron: A Database of Eighteenth-Century Printers' Ornaments

Watermarks

• The Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Archive
• Online Watermark Databases/Catalogues from the International Association of Paper Historians

Bookbinding

• Medieval Manuscripts Bookbinding booklet
• British Armorial Bindings. From the University of Toronto
• Bookbinding and conservation terminology

Engravings/Illustration

• Database of Mid-Victorian wood-engraved Illustration
• British Printed Images to 1700
• CERL - Heritage of the Printed Book Database

Finding Rare Books

Databases/Catalogues

• Worldcat
• British Library catalogues
• More catalogues from CERL

Booksellers

• International League of Antiquarian Booksellers - Old and rare books - ILAB-LILA
• Abebooks
• IOBA | Welcome to the website of the Independent Online Booksellers Association | Independent Online Booksellers Association
• BookGilt - Advanced search
• Biblio.com | Used & Rare Books from Independent Booksellers
• Forum Rare Books | Home
• Rare Books - Anah Dunsheath antiquarian Booksellers - NZ

Provenance Research

• University of Canterbury Library Provenance
• Early Book owners in Britain
• Material Evidence in Incunabula
• Paul Needham: Index Possessorum Incunabulorum
• Book Owners Online (David Pearson)

Bookplates/Heraldic

• Bookplate Registry
• Heraldic Dictionary
• Book-Plates by William John Hardy
• Index of Siebmacher's Armorials

• Palaeography resources from the National Archives (UK)

Book Terminology

• IOBA | Book Terminology | Independent Online Booksellers Association
• AbeBooks: Book Collecting Guide - AbeBooks' Glossary of Book Terms

Help with Latin

• Mediae Latinatus lexicon minus = Medieval Latin dictionary.
• Latin for Rare Book Librarians
• Latin Place Names -  Latin Place Names File. Latin Place Names Found in the Imprints of Books Printed Before 1801 and their Vernacular.
• Orbis Latinus - Online Electronic version of the 1909 edition of Graesse, Columbia University