English Short Title Catalogue -- ESTC (EST) From the British Library

Scope of Database:

• Works printed in any language in England or its dependencies from the beginning of printing (about 1430) through the end of the eighteenth century (1800).
• Works printed in English anywhere else in the world during that period.

Size of Database

• Over 420,000 records

Starting a Search

• Search Commands
  • Find fin
  • Browse bro
• Usage
  • fin auw eusebius and tiw histories
    • This takes you to a list of books by the Bishop of Eusebius that have "histories" in their title.

Most used indexes

• All indexes can be used with fin, but bro ownly supports 4 indexes.

  Abbr.	Index	Find (fin)	Browse (bro)
  au	Exact names of personal or organizational authors	x	x
  auw	Words from names of personal or organizational authors	x
  ti	Exact titles	x	x
  tiw	Words from titles	x
  su	Exact subject headings	x	x
  suw	Words from subject headings	x
  	Note: Subject headings appear only in records for items printed before 1701
  ip	Exact imprint (printer/publisher)	x	x
  imw	Words from imprint (printer/publisher)	x
  iyr	Imprint year	x
  pyr	Publication year or range	x
  ipl	Imprint place	x
  cpb	Country of publication code	x
  nrw	Words from citation	x
  nrp	Exact citation	x
  ngw	Words from general notes	x
  lg	Language code	x
  lw	Words from item's location	x
  smk	Shelfmark	x
  gnr	Genre code	x
  id	Record ID	x

Wild card / truncation

• The wild card / truncation symbol in est is the question mark: ?
• It stands for 1 or more letters.
• There must be at least 3 letters at the beginning of the word.
• You can use only 1 question mark in a search.
• Use only with find (fin). The question mark can not be used with browse (bro).