A few people from the Early Modern Studies Group at Harvard have created the Theatrum Catalogorum which collates “library catalogs from every major European country” The next version should countain North American catalogs as well. Of particular interest is the fact that these catalogs are not just linked, they are annotated somewhat. While most of these notes are jus tinformation for English speakers on how to search the catalogs, library geeks will enjoy some of the meta-commentary such as “Many early modern holdings probably lost in an eighteenth-century fire.” or “Don’t bother looking in 1930-1991 or 1992-present catalogs.” [thanks pk]
2 thoughts on “Harvard’s Theatrum Catalogorum”
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It is interesting to see them put the effort into this, but given that such lists exist elsewhere, it is one of those instances of duplicated effort that makes me wonder what these scholars think librarians do all day. WESSWeb has had a list like this for Europe for years. I noted that Harvard’s list lacked an entry for the KVK, an indispensable tool for the German scholar, and increasingly for scholars elsewhere as it continues to federate content from around the world.