Short Title Catalogue

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CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT

The STCV (Short Title Catalogus Vlaanderen, or, Short Title Catalogue Flanders) was founded following the example of the STCN (Short Title Catalogue Netherlands). The STCN described all publications that appeared before 1801 within the current boundaries of the Netherlands, regardless of the language, as well as all publications from the same period that were published in Dutch anywhere in the world.

It is to this last rule that an important exception was made: publications that appeared within the current boundaries of Belgium were omitted. The STCN assumed that their project would have a Southern counterpart.

With the foundation of STCV, there finally was that 'Southern counterpart', with an equally ambitious goal: to describe all publications that appeared before 1801 within the current boundaries of Flanders (including Brussels). Initially, for pragmatic reasons, only works printed in Dutch between 1601-1700 were considered. Later this became all works of the period 1601-1700 regardless of their language. A bit later still, these limits were dropped altogether, meaning STCV is now in the process of describing all publications that appeared before 1801 within the current boundaries of Flanders (including Brussels). To see which collections (following which criteria) have been processed to date, check out this outline, which is updated monthly.

BETWEEN BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CATALOGUE

The STCV has characteristics of both a catalogue and a bibliography. One the one hand, it only describes copies present in a collection (characteristic of a catalogue). On the other hand, however, the works are analysed as bibliographical units. STCV describes ideal copies; copy-specific information (binding, provenance, ...) falls outside of the scope of STCV. Extra attention is given to elements such as the collation and the fingerprint (characteristics of a bibliography).

+ The STCV fingerprint follows the rules of the STCN.

+ The collation expresses the material form and scope of the described publication. The publication's 'ideal copy', as it was meant by the publisher, is always the starting point. Deviations from an ideal copy differ from copy to copy and are thus described in the copy-specific information.

The STCN only offers the bibliographical format and the collation formula in their descriptions. The STCV also systematically includes the pagination, foliation or column indication. These details are usually relatively easy to read or deduce from the publication, also by a less specialised public. An additional benefit of including the pagination, foliation or column indication, is that it allows for a simple verification of the actual collation formula.

+ The bibliographical format is determined according to McKerrow's Introduction and Bowers' Principles. Check the Bibliographical Format overview of the most common bibliographical formats for an indication of watermark positions and chain line directions.

→ Ronald B. McKerrow. An introduction to bibliography for literary students. Winchester, 1994.

→ Fredson Thayer Bowers. Principles of bibliographical description. Winchester, 1994.

+ In theory, the collation formula is constructed according to the rules of Bowers (Principles, p. 196-254 and 457-461). A shorter overview can be found in Gaskell (A new introduction, p. 328-331) and Pearce (Workbook, p. 73-92). In practice, however, Bowers' rules are not followed to the smallest detail: when the collation formula becomes too cluttered or complex, it is simplified (Laufer, Introduction, p. 129).

→ Philipp Gaskell. A new introduction to bibliography. New Castle (Del.), 1995

→ M. J. Pearce. A workbook of analytical and descriptive bibliography. London, 1970

→ Roger Laufer. Introduction à la textologie: vérification, établissement, édition des textes. Paris, 1972

STCV furthermore deviates on a few points from the rules mentioned above, specifically concerning cancels and the representation of additions. The general principle is that all parts of a book are named in such a way, that they are unambiguously recognisable in the collation formula and that they can unambiguously be referred to in the notes and the cataloguing remarks.

+ Primary versus secondary author

For the STCV, the function-indication is more important than the difference between primary or secondary author. In a work that is published for its illustrations (e.g. a collection of engravings with a title page), one could consider the illustrator as 'primary author'. However, the illustrator in this case is indicated as 'ill' to reflect his actual relation to the work. For summaries and adaptations, the summariser or adaptor is also always indicated as such (adp). If known, the original author is always 'primary author' (aut).

NUMBER OF AUTHORS

The STCV records as wide a gamma of 'authors' as possible. This means: all persons or authorities that were involved in the contents or artistic realisation of the book, and who can be traced on the basis of that. Authors mentioned on the title page(s), in the approbation, the privilege or on the engravings, are recorded as much as possible; people to whom the work was dedicated and that are mentioned in prefaces and dedications, are not. Mentioning all these 'passive' authors would lead us too far. Authors of liminary materials, poems and praise of the author or the work, prefaces, short commentaries, critical apparatus or short biographies of the main author(s) are also not recorded individually.

THE DESCRIPTIONS

The STCV-database follows, for pragmatic reasons, the Dutch model. However, since STCV was from the start developed specifically for the internet, no attention is given to printed by-products. In principle, bibliographical descriptions are kept brief/short, which particularly affects the titles. Nevertheless, enough significant elements are retained to be able to distinguish the title from others. The syntactical structure is also maintained and attention is paid so that the title does not offer incorrect of misleading information about the book.