The Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue (NCSTC) aims to provide increasingly complete listings of British books printed between 1801 and 1919. British books are taken to include all books published in Britain, its colonies, and the United States; all books in English wherever published; and all translations from English. The reviewer was provided with two packets: one which contained a CD, loading instructions, and a user’s manual for Series I and II, covering 1801 through 1870, issued in 1996; the second which contained a CD, loading instructions, and a user’s manual for Series III, covering 1871‐1919, dated April 1997 and called issue 2.
A number of library collections and catalogs are included in this CD. They include the
Bodleian Library (Oxford), Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Library (Dublin), National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh), Harvard University Library, the British Library (London), The University Library (Newcastle), and the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.). Each entry in NCSTC includes the following elements: author statement, with epithet and life‐span; title; imprint (place of imprint, printer, publisher, date of publication, pagination, format); series title; bibliographical notes; added entries or cross references; subject classification in verbal and number form; country of publication/language of text; and source library (shelfmark, other library locations).
After loading the CD, a number of indexes are available to the user. These can be accessed through a menu or through icons at the top of the screen. These indexes are: keyword, title, series title, author, author epithet, subject, subject classification, printers and publishers, place of imprint, date of publication, language of publication, country of publication, library location, and record reference number. NCSTC has incorporated the BookMarc search engine developed by Libpac Computer Services. It is a powerful and efficient search mechanism that provides access to the information through a wide range of indexes and boolean search terms.
The loading instructions for this product are extensive but easy to follow. Once loaded, access to information is displayed and enabled through the Windows environment. This CD would be of interest to anyone working in nineteenth century literature studies, nineteenth century manuscript studies, and any other type of nineteenth century studies. It is constructed to be complete, yet user friendly. I found the icon‐driven search engine to be especially easy to use. I would highly recommend this product to research libraries and research institutions with faculty working in this area.
