Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

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The ‘Catalogue des anonymes’ is a sequel of the Catalogue général des livres imprimés de la Bibliothèque nationale-Auteurs which was published between 1897 and 1981 in 231 volumes. From 1984 onwards the cataloguing of anonymous and collective works became a new project of high-level book-in-hand cataloguing, proceeding in alphabetical order. The chronological limits were set at the period 1500-1800.

At present the file contains 28,000 records, the majority being titles beginning with the letter ‘a’. It also includes all Bibles printed before 1800 in the BnF and in the other major collections in Paris (Sainte-Geneviève, Sorbonne, Mazarine, and Société de l’histoire du protestantisme français), a total of some 4,200 records.

The full book-in-hand cataloguing format conforms to the French standard for early books Z44-073 and is in INTERMARC format.

Wanting are only the fingerprint, the signature collation (except when there is no pagination) and a contents note.

The title zone re-arranges title, sub-title and additional information. Other forms of the title are included as cross-references.

Uniform titles (UNIMARC 5xx), names of authors, secondary authors and printers (UNIMARC 7xx) are standardised according to the BnF’s authority files

Each volume is described as a separate entity with reference to a collective title.

Start with searching on a complete title or on a title-word. A sophisticated search on printer’s name and place of printing can have good results, since particular attention has been paid to standardising the forms of these names. The same applies to authors’ names and the uniform titles of the Bible. It has to be borne in mind that essentially this is a catalogue of anonymous works and of works whose authorship was attributed after their publication.