The Heritage of the Printed Book (HPB) database is available via an online interface. On the landing page you find information about the HPB, an overview of all datasets aggregated in the HPB (‘Content of the HPB’). Below we offer detailed information on how to use the Simple and Advanced Search options.

Accessing HPB

The HPB database is freely accessible via the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) website. Users can search the database directly through the web interface without registration.

For institutions and advanced users, the database can also be accessed using SRU (Search/Retrieve via URL) and Z39.50 protocols. These machine-to-machine access options support integration into local library systems and enable large-scale querying.

Search help

The following pages are intended to document the search features available and offer some additional detailed information that may be helpful to you for formulating your query.

Working with search results

Once you have set of records as a result from your query, you can combine one set of records with another set, you can analyse your results, you can further refine your search, or you can download your results for further off line research. The following pages offer some detailed information.