The Retrospective Conversion of Old Collections : The Example of American Libraries

This article examines the project of retrospective conversion of old collections in public and private libraries in the United States. The Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue lists all the books printed in the British Isles, the American colonies, the United States, Canada or the territory governed by the English, from its origins to 1800, as well as all works published in English worldwide. This group is organized in the form of a collective catalogue managed by two centres of cataloguing and monitoring (the British Library and the university library at Riverside, California). The author emphasizes the undeniable scientific interest of this project, but also underlines its limitations.
Read