English Short Title Catalog

In addition to using the ESTC Online search tool, you also have the option of using the printed indexes to search for and locate your desired English Short Title Catalog item.  There are two different indexes that are used to locate STC items.  The first is the author index.  The title and call number for the STC I author index is as follows:

Short Title Catalogue of English Books 1475-1640 - Ref Oversize Z 2002 .P77 1976 (3 Volumes)

 

The second index that is needed is the corresponding Cross Index for the STC I.  The title and call number for the STC I Cross Index (located on top of the Reference Oversize Shelf) is as follows:

Early English Books, 1475-1640, Selected from Pollard and Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue; Cross Index to Reels - Ref Z 2002 .P772 Index

The English Short Title Catalog II has its own author and cross index, which are the following:

Short-Title Catalogue 1641-1700 - Ref Z 2002 .W5  (Author Index: 3 volumes)

Early English Books 1641-1700, Selected from Donald Wing's Short Title Catalogue, A Cross Index to years 1-13 of the Microfilm Collection - Ref Z 2002 .W52  (the Cross Index, also located on top of the Reference Oversize shelf)

Before you are ready to use the indexes to locate the desired text, there are two key pieces of information about the text that you will need.  The first is the author/title of the item and the second is the year in which the item was printed.  The year that the text was printed will tell you which index set to use (1475-1640 or 1641-1700), and the author/title will allow you to locate the item within its proper index set.

 

ESTC texts are located on microfilm reels, which are located in the library's MediaSpace.  In order to identify the correct reel, you first need to find the text in the appropriate index.  The index entry for the desired text will give you an Entry Number, which is commonly referred to as the Short Title Catalog (STC) Number.  Once you have the STC Number, the next step is to locate that same STC Number in the corresponding Cross Index, which will then identify the appropriate microfilm reel that contains the desired text.

 

The process for finding titles in either the STC I or the STC II is identical, but there is one minor difference in terminology that should be noted.  When searching the STC I index (1475-1640) for your item's Entry Number, that number is called the STC Number.  For the STC II index (1641-1700), however, the Entry Number is called the Wing Number.  Each Wing Number begins with a letter, which is the first letter of the last name of the title's author.  The STC Number and the Wing Number function exactly the same way; they are both used to identify which microfilm reel contains your desired text.

 

The easiest way to understand how this process works is to follow an example:

 

Lets say you were interested in finding the text for William Salesbury's The baterie of the Popes Botereulx, commonly called the high altare, printed in 1550.  The first step is to look at the date it was originally printed, which in this case is 1550.  Since this date falls between the 1475-1640 date range, we will therefore use the Short Title Catalogue of English Books 1475-1640 and its corresponding Cross Index, both of which correlate to the STC I.

 

Now that we have identified which STC we will be using, the next step is to find the title in the STC I Index and identify its corresponding STC Number.  Searching through the index by the author's last name (Salesbury), we find the following entry: "21613 --The baterie of the popes botereulx, commonlye called the high altare. 80. [R. Grafton f.] (R. Crowley, 1550.) L.L.2.NLW.; F."

 

We see that the STC Number for this title is 21613.  The next step is to find this STC Number in the corresponding Cross Index and determine which microfilm reel contains our title.  Page 84 of the Early English Books 1475-1640 Cross Index to Reels 1-1536 produces the following image/information:

 

 

According to the Cross Index, STC Number 21613 can be found on microfilm reel #145.  Now that we know which microfilm reel contains our item, all that is left to do is retrieve the microfilm reel (#145) and find the desired title. 

 

Each reel of the ESTC microfilm starts with a slide that tells you the order in which each item appears on that reel, organized by STC Number.  At the beginning of microfilm reel 145, this slide appears as follows:

 

 

Looking at the image above, we see that William Salesbury's The Baterie of the Popes Botereulx, STC Number 21613, is the 12th title on microfilm reel 145.  Simply scroll through the microfilm reel until you've reached the 12th title.  You will know you've found it when you see the following image on the microfilm machine:

 

 

You have officially found the desired ESTC text!  From here, you can either read the text off of the microfilm machine or print any desired pages for free directly from the machine.  Image quality for texts from the ESTC microfilm collection will vary from title to title.

 

To learn where the ESTC microfilm collection is located within the library, please visit the Locating the ESTC within the Library tab of this guide.