The English Short-Title Catalogue: Past, Present, Future. Papers Delivered at a Conference at the New York Public Library on January 21, 1998, together with Some Personal Histories of the ESTC in North America and Reports of the Canvass of the Public Record Office (review)

During the twentieth century bibliographical studies developed in a forward motion thanks — in no small measure — to the development of the concept of the short-title catalogue. It was of course the Bibliographical Society's own magisterial Short-Title Catalogue, first published in 1927, that set both the standard for accuracy and the model for layout and format that others were to follow. A century since the project was first conceived and the research begun, the short-title catalogue is still alive and well, largely now in the form of the ESTC, still moving forward in a collaborative spirit in two editorial centres, Riverside, California and St Pancras, London. The publication of this volume is both a welcome opportunity to look back at the development of this exciting phase of the STC movement and a chance to reflect on the future of this kind of bibliographical tool.

The history of the ESTC itself is an interesting story as told in this volume, as it documents not only the development of a great bibliographical enterprise, but also the changing fortunes and institutional priorities of the British Library, and indeed more broadly the growing importance of computer-based technologies in humanities scholarship. Although its origins are in a research proposal emanating from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the first concrete steps were taken by the British Library in the 1970s, when it began a scheme to re-catalogue its eighteenth-century holdings. This project soon became conceived as the core of an ambitious Anglo-American initiative, with funding for a feasibility study from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This story is told four times in this collection — from a US perspective by both G. Thomas Tanselle and Henry L. Snyder, the latter the indefatigable driving force behind the ESTC's forward moment for most of its twenty-five years; from a UK perspective by Michael Crump, for many years head of the British Library ESTC Office; and from the perspective of the literary scholar by Paul Korshin, arguably the wider ESTC project's progenitor.

The key to the story is the academic vision for the underpinning of scholarly progress in a variety of humanities disciplines. This was articulated by a variety of scholars and scholar-librarians on both sides of the Atlantic: in the US Paul Korshin, Terry Belanger, Marcus McCorison, and others joined forces with Robin Alston, Julian Roberts, and Ian Willison in providing the initial impetus necessary for the idea to achieve a degree of credibility. Douglas Bryant, Don Richnell, and others provided the high-level institutional backing that was necessary from the British Library; Carl Bridenbaugh and Thomas R. Adams established an equivalent American committee, and had the foresight to suggest to Henry L. Snyder, then of the University of Kansas, to become the Principal Investigator for an initial grant-funded project.

The rest of the story is marked by three key facets. First, a huge international collaborative effort, involving scholars and librarians working together, and two sets of committees and project staff in the US and the UK similarly working in tandem, across time zones. Second, the rapidly evolving nature of the use of IT in supporting the work of libraries and scholars: the ESTC's involvement with both the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and the BL to deliver the underpinning technology, and the various delivery mechanisms, from computer-output microfiche, through the CD-ROM technology, and finally various forms of online delivery, have all...