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Medieval and Early Manuscripts

Houghton Library. Digital Medieval Manuscripts

Walters Art Museum. The Digital Walters

Columbia University Libraries. Digital Scriptorum

UCLA. Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts

Oxford University. Early Manuscripts

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Parker Library
538 Medieval Manuscripts, including one of the largest collections of Old English.

Adam Matthew Digital, Ltd. Medieval Family Life (From libraries in Britain)

Printed Books

Bavarian State Library, Munich. 15th century Bavarian Blockbooks

National Gallery of Art. Announcing the Text: Development of the Title Page, 1470-1900.

Proquest. Early European Printed Books.

Bookbindings

British Library. Database of Bookbindings.

Morgan Library. Incunable Bookbindings.

Princeton Special Collections. Hand Bookbindings: Plain and Simple to Grand and Glorious

Folger Shakespeare Library. Binding Image Collection.

Book Illustration

Image Permanence Institute. Graphics Atlas.

Bibliography

Tanselle, G. Thomas. Introduction to Bibliography, Seminar Syllabus. Charlottesville: Book Arts Press, 2002. (PDF)

Tanselle, G. Thomas. Introduction to Scholarly Editing, Seminar Syllabus. Charlottesville: Book Arts Press, 2002. (PDF)

Comprehensive guides to the literature of these two fields, including suggestions for basic reading and chronological lists of the writings on specific topics. See The Tanselle Syllabi on the Rare Book School website.

Printers Devices at the University of Barcelona.

Database of Bookbindings at the British Library.

Princeton Special Collections. Hand Bookbindings: Plain and Simple to Grand and Glorious

Image Permanence Institute. Graphics Atlas. Print identification tutorial and reference.

Book Trade

Rosenthal, B.M. Dictionary of Abbreviations Commonly used by German and Italian Antiquarian Booksellers and Auctioneers. Hilversum, Netherlands: ILAB/LILA, 1993. (PDF)

Franco, Edgar. Dictionary of Terms and Expressions commonly used in the Antiquarian Booktrade in French, English, German and Italian. ILAB/LILA, 1994. (PDF)

Carter, John and Nicolas Barker. ABC for Book Collectors. 8th ed. Oak Knoll Press, 2004. (PDF)

Music

Library of Congress. Music Treasures Consortium (also includes BL, Harvard, Juilliard, The Morgan, and NYPL)

Theatre

University of Washington. J. Willis Sayre Photographs.  24,000 photographs of theatrical and vaudeville performers, musicians, and entertainers who played in Seattle between about 1900 and 1955.

Paleography – Online Courses and Tutorials

Universités Lyon, France. Interactive Album of Medieval Palaeography.

Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Service, Cambridge University, UK. English Handwriting 1500-1700: An Online Course.

National Archives, UK. Latin Paleaography, online tutorial.

National Archives, UK. Paleaography: Reading Old Handwriting 1500-1800, A Practical Online Tutorial.

Paleography – Books

Johnston, Edward. Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering. New York: Macmillan, 1915. (6th ed.) [Google Books]

Wright, Andrew. Court-hand restored; or, The student’s assistant in reading old deeds, charters, records, etc. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1864. [Internet Archive]

Cappelli, Adriano. Lexicon Abbreviaturarum. 2. verb. Aufl. Leipzig, 1928. (In German)

Cappelli, Adriano. The Elements of Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Paleography. University of Kansas Libraries, 1984.

Paper

University of Iowa. Paper Through Time.

University of Iowa. Center for the History of the Book. Chancery Papermaking. (Video)

AngliaTV. Papermaking by hand at Hayle Mill, England 1976 (Video)

Preservation/Conservation

Folger Shakespeare Library. Handling Rare Materials (video).
Harvard College Library. Handling Harvard’s Special Collections (video).

General Collections of Primary Resources

World Digital Library
GoogleBooks
Internet Archive
Gallica
Hathi Trust
Europeana
Harvard Hollis Catalogue
ILAB
EROMM – European Register of Microform and Digital Masters
EDIT 16 – The census of Italian 16th century editions
MDZ – Munich Digitization Center
USTC – European printed books through the 16th century