Skip to Main Content

Information Studies 603: Incunabula Project Guide: Part 2 continued: Navigating ISTC

Part 2: Bibliographic Tools: Incunabula Short Title Catalog

ISTC is the primary resource for locating fifteenth-century printings. It is an international register of nearly every item printed (in the West) from movable type before 1501 (including some sixteenth-century items previously assigned incorrectly to the fifteenth century), but not material printed entirely from woodblocks or engraved plates. Records give physical information, holdings information, and references (including cross-references to other major online catalogs).

Navigating to ISTC

Click the link below to be taken to the ISTC website:

https://data.cerl.org/istc/_search

Searching Strategies

  1. Use the "Advanced Search" feature.
  2. Try variant spellings for author, printer, title, and even place of printing.
  3. Make browsing the results easier by sorting the results.

Tips and Tricks for ISTC

Other Incunabula Bibliographies

The ILAB website provides a nice summary of these bibliographies with links to each website.

  1. Union Catalogue of Incunabula (GKW)
  2. Munich Incunabula Collection
  3. INKA Catalogue of Incunabula, Tübingen
  4. L. Hain, Repertorium bibliographicum
  5. W. A. Copinger, Supplement to Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum
  6. Dietrich Reichling, Appendices ad Hainii-Copingeri
  7. M. Pellechet, Catalogue Général des Incunables des Bibliothèques publiques de France
  8. Alfred W. Pollard et al
  9. .Bancroft Library of Incunabula
  10. History of the Book Title - Incunabula and Early Printing