Wednesday, November 15, 2006

ESTC [English Short-Title Catalog] Free Online

History people--take note! Librarians, remember Pollard and Redgrave and Wing and the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue? It is all here, online, for free, from the British Library, sponsored by a number of grants and foundations.

For "regular" people it is: "bibliographic records for all surviving letter press material in the British Isles and North America before 1801, held by the British Library and over 2000 other institutions worldwide. . . . The project documents all types of printed material including letterpress books, pamphlets, newspapers, serials, advertisements, election handbills and a variety of other printed material. The coverage extends to items printed in all languages in the British Isles and beyond, to Colonial America, United States of America (1776-1800), Canada, or territories governed by Britain before 1801.

This is a catalog; not full-text. But as a catalog it does tell you the locations (library/ies) that hold each of these items. Some may well be full-text online in other places on the Internet, but this is incredibly valuable as a place to verify the exact title, author, edition with full description, and the actual existence of an item in a particular collection.

Search for Franklin Benjamin as an exact phrase to pull up every item that he printed, as well as his writings, of course.

I love Open Access on the Internet! js

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