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The BnF's holdings of pre-1831 printed books.
The full book-in-hand cataloguing format conforms to the French standard for early books Z44-073 and is in INTERMARC format.
Wanting are only the fingerprint, the signature collation (except when there is no pagination) and a contents note.
Each volume is described as a separate entity with reference to a collective title.
Start with searching on a complete title or on a title-word. A sophisticated search on printer’s name and place of printing can have good results, since particular attention has been paid to standardising the forms of these names. The same applies to authors’ names and the uniform titles of the Bible. It has to be borne in mind that essentially this is a catalogue of anonymous works and of works whose authorship was attributed after their publication.
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