»Möchte doch Jemand die mittelalterlichen Cataloge zusammenstellen . . .«

Die Bemühungen um ein Korpus von mittelalterlichen Bibliothekskatalogen und die Online-Datenbank ›Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz‹

Abstract

Duane Henderson: »Möchte doch Jemand die mittelalterlichen Cataloge zusammenstellen . . .« The past and present of compiling a corpus of medieval library catalogues: introducing the online database ›Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz‹.

The demand for a comprehensive overview of medieval library catalogues reaches back to the 19th century and has, over the years, sporned various individual and national undertakings, of which the German project ›Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz‹ (MBK) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, begun in 1906, is the oldest still active. This paper briefly reviews the history of these efforts and outlines their different approaches up to the present day. Focusing on the long-term project MBK, the paper discusses the challenges it faces with regard to completeness, comprehensiveness, and currentness. As a solution to these problems, the project has developed an online repertorium documenting as completely as possible, for the countries of present-day Germany and Switzerland, the source material published in MBK editions and other editions as well as unedited catalogues mentioned in secondary literature or otherwise identified in finding books and catalogues. The MBK database is now online under the address: https://dienste. badw.de/mbk/.