These historic shelfmarks date from the late 15th to the 20th century and have been found in incunabula today in European and American libraries. They can either belong to an identified provenance (a person or institution), or be anonymous. The table below offers a pattern ID number, a transcription of the shelfmark, a description of its pattern, a note field relating to the type of writing material/the date/the place it is found inside the book, the library where the book is today, the provenance the historic shelfmark belonged to, the MEI record ID. of the book.
In MEI there is a pattern ID number field where the editor can indicate to which pattern the specific historic shelfmark being described belongs to. Tracking these patterns of former shelmarks is helpful for the identification of anonymous provenance as well as to further our understanding on the knowledge management in historical libraries.
