The Incunabula and MEI Editors Working Group supports and develops Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI), a specialist database documenting the copy-specific, post-production history of 15th-century printed books. MEI records material evidence such as provenance, bindings, decoration, manuscript annotations, stamps, and prices, providing unparalleled insight into the life and transmission of each surviving incunable.

MEI is closely linked to the British Library’s Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), from which it derives its bibliographical records. This integration allows users to combine ISTC bibliographical data with rich copy-specific descriptions.

The Working Group brings together the editors and curators of the digital resources for the study of incunabula: Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW), ISTC, MEI and Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke (TW)

Incunabula Working group

MEI Editors work towards the insertion into Material Evidence in Incunabula database of high quality data relating to the copy specific of incunabula, either book in hand, or by transferring into the database information from printed or electronic catalogues. A group of Advisers is in place for consultation on the ongoing development and growth of the database, and its integration with other existing incunabula databases.

The working group usually meets twice a year.

Chair: Cristina Dondi, CERL Secretary

  • Nathalie Coilly, Paris BnF
  • Martin Davies, MEI Advisor, London
  • Oliver Duntze, Staatsbibliothek, Berlin
  • Falk Eisermann, Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, Staatsbibliothek, Berlin
  • John Goldfinch, MEI UK Editor, London
  • Alexander Jahnke, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen
  • Julia King, ISTC
  • Mira Kroll, Vienna ONB
  • John Lancaster, MEI US Editor
  • Karen Limper-Herz, ISTC, The British Library, London
  • Paul Needham, formerly Scheide Library, Princeton
  • Greg Prickman, Atlas of Early Printing and Folger Library, Washington
  • Saveria Rito, IGI, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Rome
  • Bettina Wagner, Staatsbibliothek, Bamberg

The Incunabula WG has a circulation list to ask for the advice of the members on challenging inscriptions, decoration, binding, stamps, provenance, coat of arms etc. To register please write to Cristina Dondi at c.dondi@cerl.org.

CERL Incunabula Working Group Members Photo

Iowa City Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association, 21 June 2017

The Future of Bibliographic Data—New Discoveries from the Study of the Oldest Printed Books (from left to right: Karen Limper-Herz, ISTC; Cristina Dondi, MEI; Greg Prickman, Atlas of Early Printing (organiser); Oliver Duntze, GW).

Resources

• Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW)

• Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC)

• Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI)

• TEXT-inc. A corpus of texts printed in the 15th century

• 1516: A Visually Searchable Database of Printed Illustration from the 15th and 16th centuries

• 15cBOOKTRADE Project (Oxford 2014-2019)

• Needham’s Ruler

• Marco Palma’s Archivio degli incunaboli in scrittura latina datati per anno
An excel sheet containing 12205 editions with indication of date in the colophon. It is a work in progress created by Gaetano Fascia, Marco Palma, Maria Alessia Piombino, Danilo Sciucco.

• Glasgow Incunabula Project: Price Index
The Glasgow Incunabula Project references prices of books as actually recorded in the books, and also prices from other sources such as marked up booksellers’ catalogues etc. Listed chronologically (earliest first) and then in shelf-mark order, differentiating between currencies:

• Eric White: Researching Print Runs: download PDFs with full introduction and database of 15th century print runs of incunabula.
Many historians have tried to quantify the impact of the fifteenth-century “printing revolution” by multiplying the number of known editions by an assumed average print run. But while the ISTC lists over 28,000 surviving editions, the number of lost ones is unknowable—and typical print runs are equally uncertain. As a result, estimates of total output range wildly, from eight to over twenty million copies, with margins of error larger than the estimates themselves. Meaningful measurement therefore requires a more systematic study of print-run data. Eric White’s recent census of fifteenth-century print runs moves in this direction by first asking a simpler question: what data actually exist?

• Printing R-Evolution 1450-1500
The website Printing R-Evolution makes available to the public:

• TW – Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke

• 1516

• About MEI

• BookTracker (for visualisations)
BookTracker is an ongoing research project dedicated to the design and development of visualization tools to assist historical book researchers through variate visual representations of the MEI data.

• Pattern of historic Shelfmarks

• Reading Practices / Typologies

• Distribution & Use / MEI Fields

• Distribution & Use / MEI Editing Guidelines

• Distribution & Use / MEI Searching Guidelines

The list of MEI editors can be found here.

Download current MEI report here.

Contact information

For more information about the Incunabula Working Group, please contact the Chair: Cristina Dondi, Consortium of European Research Libraries.