Library Catalogues and / as Research Data

The online Rylands Lunchtime Seminar Series highlights the breadth and quality of our unique Special Collections and showcases world-class collections-based research activities. It brings together experts from the University of Manchester Library and University of Manchester academics working closely with the special collections held in the Library.

Library Catalogues and / as Research Data: the hidden voices of early printed books in the John Rylands

Libraries such as the JRRIL are not just repositories of books but also of information about those books. This paper asks what the opportunities and limitations of library catalogue records—or metadata about books—are in supporting data-driven research into book history. It focuses on the question of contributions of people from marginalised groups to early printed books (c. 1450-1750). How and to what extent do cataloguing practices reveal or obscure these groups’ contributions? What is the role of authority files such as those of the Library of Congress in this process? What are the benefits and limitations of different cataloguing standards and Linked Open Data in representing and bringing together information about the contributions of diverse people (in terms of gender, social background, and so on) to the history of books? We will draw on selected items and records from the JRRIL to illustrate and explore these issues.

Dr Fred Schurink, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Literature, University of Manchester and Dr Tabitha Tuckett, Lecturer in Library and Archive Studies at the University of Manchester

Fred Schurink is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at The University of Manchester. His publications include Antiquity Made Present in Reformation England: Classical Translation and the Politics of Counsel, 1530-1580 (CUP, forthcoming 2026), Plutarch in English, 1528-1603 (MHRA, 2020), Tudor Translation (Palgrave, 2012), and The Textuality and Materiality of Reading in Early Modern England (HLQ SI, 2010). He is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘Continental European Books in Early Modern England, 1500-1640: A New Approach Using Bibliographic Data Science’ (2024-25).