An incunable, or sometimes incunabulum, is a book, pamphlet, or broadside printed in Europe before the 16th century. Incunabula are not manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. As of 2014, there are about 30,000 distinct known incunable editions extant, but the probable number of surviving copies in Germany alone is estimated at around 125,000. Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000. Around 550,000 copies of around 27,500 different works have been preserved worldwide.
The Bavarian State Library in Munich is the central "Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the biggest universal and research library in Germany and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 10.89 million books, it ranks among the best research libraries worldwide. Moreover, its historical stock encompasses one of the most important manuscript collections of the world, the largest collection of incunabula worldwide, as well as numerous further important special collections. Its collection of historical prints before 1850 number almost one million units.
The Berlin State Library is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the largest libraries in Europe, and one of the most important academic research libraries in the German-speaking world. It collects texts, media and cultural works from all fields in all languages, from all time periods and all countries of the world, which are of interest for academic and research purposes. Some famous items in its collection include the oldest biblical illustrations in the fifth-century Quedlinburg Itala fragment, a Gutenberg Bible, the main autograph collection of Goethe, the world's largest collection of Johann Sebastian Bach's and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's manuscripts, and the original score of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
The so called Preußische Instruktionen or PI are a cataloging set of rules for libraries which was used in scientific libraries in German-speaking countries and beyond. First published in 1899, the PI were replaced by other sets of rules such as the Regeln für die alphabetische Katalogisierung (RAK) from the 1980s onwards, which in turn have been replaced by the Resource Description and Access (RDA) rules since 2015.
Utopia was the name of several science fiction series published by Erich Pabel Verlag, Rastatt. Together with the Terra series of the rival publisher Arthur Moewig Verlag, Munich, the Utopia series were the most important science fiction work in the early years of West Germany.
A short-title catalogue is a bibliographical resource that lists printed items in an abbreviated fashion, recording the most important words of their titles. The term is commonly encountered in the context of early modern books, which frequently have lengthy, descriptive titles on their title pages. Many short-title catalogues are union catalogues, listing items in the custody of multiple libraries.
The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales is an international non-profit organization, founded in Paris in 1952, with the aim of comprehensively documenting extant historical sources of music all over the world. It is the largest organization of its kind and the only entity operating globally to document written musical sources. RISM is one of the four bibliographic projects sponsored by the International Musicological Society and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, the others being Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, Répertoire international d'iconographie musicale, and Répertoire international de la presse musicale.
The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers is a non-profit umbrella organization of bookseller associations, with its legal location in Geneva, Switzerland. It federates 22 National Associations of Antiquarian Booksellers, representing nearly 2000 dealers in 32 countries. Antiquarian booksellers affiliated to the League adhere to the ILAB Code of Ethics, and the League aims to server as a global network for the rare book trade.
The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) is an electronic bibliographic database maintained by the British Library which seeks to catalogue all known incunabula. The database lists books by individual editions, recording standard bibliographic details for each edition as well as giving a brief census of known copies, organised by location. It currently holds records of over 30,000 editions.
Ludwig Friedrich Theodor Hain was a German editor and bibliographer.
Gerhard Dünnhaupt, FRSC is a German bibliographer, literary historian, emeritus professor of the University of Michigan, an honorary life member of the Modern Language Association of America, Elected Fellow and Life Member of the Royal Society of Canada. In September 1983, he chaired the international "Martin Luther Quincentennial Conference" in Ann Arbor, MI. He is the author of the only annotated bibliography of German Baroque literature.
A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library is a short-title catalogue of more than 5,600 incunabula held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Bod-inc. stands out among incunabula catalogues for its detailed listing of the contents of each edition being described. It was published on 7 July 2005 by Oxford University Press in six volumes.
Peter of Kastl was a Benedictine monk who very probably composed a translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.
Konrad Haebler was a German (Saxonian) librarian, historian and expert on incunabula.
The Hortus Sanitatis, a Latin natural history encyclopaedia, was published by Jacob Meydenbach in Mainz, Germany in 1491.
Anna Rügerin, is considered to be the first female typographer to inscribe her name in the colophon of a book, in the 15th century. In 1484, Rügerin printed two books in the in-folio format, in a press she owned in the city of Augsburg (Germany). Her work appeared less than twenty years after the arrival of the movable-type printing press in that city.
Bach Digital, developed by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is an online database which gives access to information on compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and members of his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are a major focus of the website, which provides access to high-resolution digitized versions of many of these. Scholarship on manuscripts and versions of compositions is summarized on separate pages, with references to scholarly sources and editions. The database portal has been online since 2010.
The Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) is a consortium of research libraries, primarily in Europe, that facilitates access to historians with an interest in the history of the book by providing online resources including the Heritage of the Printed Book Database (HPB), the CERL Thesaurus and the CERL Portal. The organisation also holds seminars and workshops and since 1998 has published a periodical called CERL Papers. It was founded in 1992 and since 1994 has been registered in the United Kingdom as a company limited by guarantee, based in London. Its annual general meeting is usually held in November. It is governed by a board of directors and a management team. The chairman was Elmar Mittler, a German emeritus professor of library science, until November 2011 when he was succeeded by Ulf Göranson, former chief librarian at the University of Uppsala.
Bernard Hartmut Breslauer was a German antiquarian book dealer and collector, who lived in turn in Germany, England and the United States.
The Zeitschriftendatenbank or ZDB is the central bibliographical database for title and ownership records of ongoing collections in Germany and Austria, for example from trade journals, magazines and newspapers. The ZDB holds records of almost all German scientific libraries and many other public libraries and is freely available on the Internet. The journal database is managed by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (SBB) in cooperation with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB), the German National Library, which is responsible for the technical system support and further development.
