The study group rare books advocates the preservation, the cataloguing and the research of incunabula and printed works up to 1830.

The group is part of the society of "Swiss Libraries and Librarians" (BBS), but it is open to all institutions owning incunabula and old books as well as to all persons concerned with such works.

The study group meets at least once annually. The participants of the annual meeting elect a chairperson for three years.

Goals of the study group

The Swiss National Foundation is financing a preliminary project to the Handbook of historical book holdings in Switzerland. This project will commence in January 1999 and last for one and a half years. Different types of libraries will work out model entries and an editing plan for the two or three volumes on Switzerland. All of Switzerland will be covered from the outset. The German and French parts of Switzerland will each have one editor, and a third editor will be responsible for the Italian and Romantsch parts. Only the German editor works full time.

As soon as the reports for individual libraries become available they are published in the » Database Handbook of historical book collections in Switzerland.

Further projects:

» Incunable Short Title Catalogue (ISTC)

» Catalogue of Swiss printers and publishers until 1800

» Descriptive cataloguing of Rare Books (DCRB) in the IDS

The Universitätsbibliothek Basel reported its Incunabula to the ISTC office at the British Library in London. They can be retrieved online, but the information comes from directories which are somewhat dated and must therefore be used with caution.

The study group for rare books is planning a Catalogue of Swiss Printers and Publishers modelled on the Thesaurus 1473-1800 : Nederlandse Boekdrukkers en Boekverkopers by J. A. Gruys and C. de Wolf (1989). In 1999 Maude Graeppi of the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève produced a database of 17th century Genevan printers and publishers. The database will be enlarged to include printers and publishers of the 16th and the 18th centuries as well.

A test version of the » Catalogue of Swiss printers and publishers to 1800  is available on the WWW now. It is based on the data of the Geneva project. The record for WIDERHOLD is virtually complete with all the links activated. At present there is only the catalogue interface. The interface enabling online data input still has to be developped.

 For the German part of Switzerland information from the two standard works by Josef Benzing, Die Buchdrucker des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts im deutschen Sprachgebiet (21982) and David L. Paisey, Deutsche Buchdrucker, Buchhändler und Verleger, 1701-1750 (1988) could be included. The years that are not covered by these two volumes will be made accessible through information of the various libraries. For the remaining parts of French-speaking Switzerland, there exist preliminary studies for certain places and periods. Integrating the data from many different sources will be a task of special importance.

In september 1998 the commission formed to adapt the AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules 2) to the needs of the » IDS (Information network of the university libraries of German-speaking Switzerland) under the ALEPH 500 library system has appointed a sub-committee to prepare rules for the cataloguing of rare books. The members of the sub-committee are rare book librarians from the IDS-libraries. They decided to translate and adapt the manual of the Library of Congress Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Books (DCRB), Second Edition, 1991, which is much more explicit and useful than the relevant prescriptions of AACR2. The group has met four times so far and finished its task. The cataloguing rules for rare books are part of the » KIDS (Katalogisierungsregeln IDS) now.

For reasons of expediency and flexibility the sub-committee suggested to publish certain aids such as the list of works to be used für bibliographic reference on the homepage of the study group rare books.

Then send a communication to the » Message Box. Your contribution will be published in the » News section.

Message Box

© zentral- und hochschulbibliothek luzern und ag alte drucke

www.agaltedrucke.zhbluzern.ch

Webmaster