Developments in Retrospective Bibliography since 1975

The recent decline in traditional librarianship caused by political, economic and technological factors, would be most likely to be felt in libraries specializing in rare book librarianship and where retrospective bibliographies are most heavily used. The predicted negative effect on publishers of retrospective bibliographies has, however, failed to materialize and the period under review has seen the continuation of large projects, production of new editions and commissioning of completely new works. This paper presents some examples of printed bibliographies and examines the development of online databases such as the Eighteenth century short title catalogue (ESTC), the Incunable short title catalogue (ISTC), the Nineteenth century short title catalogue (NSTC and the retrospective works of the British Library (BNB) and Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). The promise of CD-ROM developments is noted with reference to the British Library Catalogue, REMARC and BNB and some future plans are outlined.